Skip to main content

Termite eating and food sharing by male chimpanzees in the Budongo Forest, Uganda

Newton-Fisher, Nicholas E. (1999) Termite eating and food sharing by male chimpanzees in the Budongo Forest, Uganda. African Journal of Ecology, 37 (3). pp. 369-371. ISSN 0141-6707. (doi:10.1046/j.1365-2028.1999.00187.x) (The full text of this publication is not currently available from this repository. You may be able to access a copy if URLs are provided) (KAR id:27834)

The full text of this publication is not currently available from this repository. You may be able to access a copy if URLs are provided.
Official URL:
https://doi.org/10.1046/j.1365-2028.1999.00187.x

Abstract

Food-sharing is an habitual, if infrequent, aspect of chimpanzee (Pan troglodytes Blumenbach) life. Both animal and plant foods are shared; the extent to which they are seems to depend on their rarity, accessibility and divisibility. The majority of food sharing is by older individuals, usually mother to offspring. Sharing of food between adults is generally confined to the division of mammalian prey by males. Such food is preferentially shared with cycling females and other adult males. Termites are a resource which is difficult to obtain, requiring skilled tool use. In terms of food sharing, they are analogous to hard-shelled nuts: individually, effectively indivisible, but collectively they have the potentially to be shared. The consumption of both nuts and social insects is female biased. Shelled nuts are most often shared by mothers with their infants and the only reported instances of termite-sharing is likewise between mothers and offspring. Chimpanzees in the Budongo Forest have not previously been reported to prey on termites. This paper provided the first positive account of such behaviour, and in particular, describes an observation of food-sharing between adult males, with termites as the shared resource.

Item Type: Article
DOI/Identification number: 10.1046/j.1365-2028.1999.00187.x
Subjects: Q Science > QH Natural history > QH541 Ecology
Q Science > QL Zoology
Q Science > QH Natural history > QH301 Biology
G Geography. Anthropology. Recreation > GN Anthropology
Divisions: Divisions > Division of Human and Social Sciences > School of Anthropology and Conservation
Depositing User: Nicholas Newton-Fisher
Date Deposited: 27 May 2011 20:46 UTC
Last Modified: 09 Mar 2023 11:32 UTC
Resource URI: https://kar.kent.ac.uk/id/eprint/27834 (The current URI for this page, for reference purposes)

University of Kent Author Information

Newton-Fisher, Nicholas E..

Creator's ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7657-2641
CReDIT Contributor Roles:
  • Depositors only (login required):

Total unique views for this document in KAR since July 2020. For more details click on the image.