Chimpanzees are able to identify the skulls of their relatives, zoologists from Kyoto University found out. They told more about this in an article in the journal Royal Society Open Science.
The researchers showed adult chimpanzees pictures of cats, dogs, chimpanzees and rats from different angles, the skulls of these animals, and rocks that looked like skulls. By tracking the direction of the chimpanzee’s gaze with the help of special devices, the scientists found out exactly where and how they looked. As expected, the chimpanzees looked at other chimpanzees more closely and intently, but the skulls of their relatives also attracted their attention. The greatest attention, looking at the skull of another chimpanzee, the animals paid to his teeth.
“When a wild chimpanzee finds a skull, it is more likely to be attentive to it than to any other inanimate object in its environment, since it bears a resemblance to its own,” the authors of the work noted.
The skull of a chimpanzee bears a fair resemblance to that of a living primate, the researchers explain. It is likely that chimpanzees, like humans, are characterized by pareidolia – the ability of the brain to recognize faces where they actually do not exist. It is impossible to say for sure whether chimpanzees understand that before them are the remains of a member of their species. Earlier observations have shown that chimpanzees are capable of mourning the dead and are likely aware of the irreversibility of death, but further research is needed to learn more about exactly how chimpanzees and other primates understand death.
