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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

Front. Ecol. Evol.

Sec. Evolutionary Ecology of Social Behaviour

Volume 13 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fevo.2025.1540922

Self-Directed and Prosocial Wound Care, Snare Removal, and Hygiene Behaviors Amongst the Budongo Chimpanzees

Provisionally accepted
Elodie Marion Freymann Elodie Marion Freymann 1,2*Catherine Hobaiter Catherine Hobaiter 3,4Michael Alan Huffman Michael Alan Huffman 5,6Harmonie Klein Harmonie Klein 3Geresomu Muhumuza Geresomu Muhumuza 4Vernon Reynolds Vernon Reynolds 4,7Nora E Slania Nora E Slania 8,9Adrian Soldati Adrian Soldati 10,3Eguma Robert Yikii Eguma Robert Yikii 4Klaus Zuberbühler Klaus Zuberbühler 4,9Susana Carvalho Susana Carvalho 11,2
  • 1 University of Oxford, Oxford, United Kingdom
  • 2 Interdisciplinary Center for Archaeology and Evolution of Human Behaviour, Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, University of Algarve, Faro, Faro, Portugal
  • 3 Wild Minds Lab, School of Psychology and Neuroscience, University of St Andrews, St Andrews, United Kingdom
  • 4 Budongo Conservation Field Station, Masindi, Uganda
  • 5 Institute of Tropical Medicine, Nagasaki University, Nagasaki, Nagasaki, Japan
  • 6 Department of Biological Anthropology, University of Sri Jayewardenepura, Nugegoda, Sri Lanka
  • 7 School of Anthropology and Museum Ethnography, Social Sciences Division, University of Oxford, Oxford, England, United Kingdom
  • 8 Development and Evolution of Cognition Research Group, Max Planck Institute of Animal Behaviour, Konstanz, Germany
  • 9 Department of Comparative Cognition, Institute of Biology, University of Neuchâtel, Neuchâtel, Neuchâtel, Switzerland
  • 10 Department of Evolutionary Anthropology, University of Zürich, Zürich, Switzerland
  • 11 Gorongosa National Park, Vila Gorongosa, Mozambique

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

    Understanding the cognitive and social foundations of healthcare behaviors in humans requires examining their evolutionary precursors in our closest living relatives. Investigating self-directed and other-directed wound care in chimpanzees provides crucial insights into the origins of medicinal knowledge, identification of specific medicinal resources used for health maintenance, and the emergence of prosocial healthcare capacities. Here we document and analyze both previously reported and newly observed instances of self-directed and other-directed wound care, snare removal, and putatively medicinal hygiene behaviors in the Sonso and Waibira chimpanzee communities of the Budongo Forest in Uganda. Reports of these behaviors come from archival records collected from over thirty years of observation at the Budongo Conservation Field Station (BCFS), videos recorded by researchers at the site, and all-occurrence behavioral data collected over two four-month periods of direct observation. We describe self-directed wound care behaviors such as wound licking, leaf-dabbing, pressing fingers to wounds, and the application of chewed plant material to wounds, as well as a successful self-directed snare removal. We also document self-directed hygiene behaviors including postcoital genital leaf wiping and postdefecation leaf wiping. For the first time in Budongo, we report the presence of prosocial wound care, adding to similar observations documented at other chimpanzee field sites. We present cases of individuals licking, finger pressing, and applying chewed plant material to the wounds of others.We also establish the presence of prosocial postcoital hygiene behaviors, specifically postcoital leaf wiping. Lastly, we report an additional unpublished case of prosocial snare removal. The presence of prosocial-care behaviors between both kin and non-kin individuals at Budongo adds another site to the growing list of locations where such behaviors have been documented, suggesting prosocial healthcare is more widespread across chimpanzee populations than previously recognized.

    Keywords: Pan troglodytes, self-medication, prosociality, Wound Care, Animal healthcare

    Received: 06 Dec 2024; Accepted: 26 Mar 2025.

    Copyright: © 2025 Freymann, Hobaiter, Huffman, Klein, Muhumuza, Reynolds, Slania, Soldati, Yikii, Zuberbühler and Carvalho. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

    * Correspondence: Elodie Marion Freymann, University of Oxford, Oxford, United Kingdom

    Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.

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