How Much Time Did Our Ancestors Spend up Trees? Savanna-Living Chimpanzees Might Help Us Find Out

Why did early hominins climb trees?

A group of Issa Valley chimpanzees navigate an open woodland crown to forage on new leaves. Credit: Rhianna C. Drummond-Clarke/Greater Mahale Ecosystem Research and Conservation (GMERC). New research on chimpanzees might explain why early hominins, despite being able to walk upright, kept their tree-climbing adaptations. The study published in Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution is based on observations of chimpanzees in the Issa Valley, Tanzania…

Did humans learn to walk in trees?

In the quest to understand how and why early humans started walking on two legs, scientists are now looking to chimpanzees living in dry, open savannah-like environments for clues. A new study reveals that these chimpanzees, despite the open terrain, still frequently climb trees to gather fruit and other foods found high in the canopy. Their behavior suggests that bipedalism may not have evolved purely as a response to ground-based travel, but a…

How much time did our ancestors spend up trees? Savanna-living chimpanzees might help us find out

It's hard to tell when—and why—our ancestors got down from trees and started walking on two legs. Many early hominins capable of bipedal walking were also well-adapted for climbing, and we lack fossil evidence from a key period when climate change turned forests into open, dry woodland called savanna-mosaic, which might have pushed hominins onto the ground.

How much time did our ancestors spend up in trees? Studying these chimpanzees might help us find out

A study on savannah-living chimpanzees suggests the need to move safely on thin tree branches could explain why early hominins that could walk upright kept their tree-climbing adaptations.

How much time did our ancestors spend climbing trees?