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Scientists Document First Clear Evidence of Chimpanzee Civil War in Uganda
Researchers say the Western faction carried out coordinated raids and infanticides after the Ngogo community split, leaving at least 28 chimpanzees dead.
- On Thursday, researchers published a study in Science documenting that the Ngogo chimpanzee community in Uganda permanently split into Western and Central factions by 2018, followed by sustained lethal violence.
- Social bonds fractured around 2015 following leadership shifts, deaths of key individuals bridging groups, and a 2014 respiratory illness that weakened social ties, according to University of Texas primatologist Aaron Sandel.
- Coordinated raids by the Western group killed at least seven adult males and 17 infants from the Central group between 2018 and 2024, with infanticide expanding significantly after 2021.
- Sandel and colleagues concluded that shifting relational dynamics alone can drive polarization and lethal conflict, challenging the hypothesis that human warfare requires cultural markers like ethnicity or religion.
- Rare events like this occur only once every 500 years, scientists note; researchers compare the Ngogo conflict to the 1970s 'Four-Year War' in Gombe, Tanzania, documented by late primatologist Jane Goodall.
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After 20 years of coexistence, two factions face each other and extreme violence is unleashed among individuals who were previously united.
How do neighbors become enemies? A study reconstructs in detail how a chimpanzee group splits into two hostile camps. We humans can learn a lot from this.
·Berlin, Germany
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Total News Sources84
Leaning Left20Leaning Right12Center23Last UpdatedBias Distribution42% Center
Bias Distribution
- 42% of the sources are Center
42% Center
L 36%
C 42%
R 22%
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