Knowing this, wild chimpanzees will sleep close to their breakfast site and get up extra early in order to start munching ahead of possible competitors, a study by an international team of researchers has found.
The team, led by Karline Janmaat from the Department of Primatology at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, observed five adult female chimpanzees in Tai National Park in Ivory Coast for 275 full days during three fruit-scarce periods.
It discovered that when the chimpanzees came upon trees in the rainforest with especially tasty and short-lived fruit that other animals also like, such as figs, they not only made their sleeping nests more "en route" to them, but also got up in the morning for breakfast earlier than usual.
"Their competitors (for ripe fruit) aren't other chimpanzees, but smaller monkeys or birds," Janmaat explained.
The hungry chimpanzees were often up and about before dawn. And the farther their sleeping nest was from the fruit-bearing tree, the earlier they got up, the researchers reported in the American scientific journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
"It was thrilling to see chimpanzee mums and their young carefully treading the forest floor during twilight, behaving skittish and on guard, while moving towards their early morning breakfast figs.
"One-fifth of these mornings they left before sunrise and the rest of the forest seemed sound asleep," Janmaat remarked.
By analysing departure times and nest positioning as a function of fruit type and location - while controlling for explanations such as weather conditions - the researchers said they had found evidence that chimpanzees, humans' closest living relatives, "flexibly plan their breakfast time, type and location after weighing multiple disparate pieces of information."
Janmaat added, "Our finding is that chimpanzees don't just live in the here and now. They can plan their actions in advance," enabling them, in times of food shortages, to secure first access to energy-rich nutrition for their large brains.
Knowing this, wild chimpanzees will sleep close to their breakfast site and get up extra early in order to start munching ahead of possible competitors, a study by an international team of researchers has found.
The team, led by Karline Janmaat from the Department of Primatology at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, observed five adult female chimpanzees in Tai National Park in Ivory Coast for 275 full days during three fruit-scarce periods.
It discovered that when the chimpanzees came upon trees in the rainforest with especially tasty and short-lived fruit that other animals also like, such as figs, they not only made their sleeping nests more "en route" to them, but also got up in the morning for breakfast earlier than usual.
"Their competitors (for ripe fruit) aren't other chimpanzees, but smaller monkeys or birds," Janmaat explained.
The hungry chimpanzees were often up and about before dawn. And the farther their sleeping nest was from the fruit-bearing tree, the earlier they got up, the researchers reported in the American scientific journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
"It was thrilling to see chimpanzee mums and their young carefully treading the forest floor during twilight, behaving skittish and on guard, while moving towards their early morning breakfast figs.
"One-fifth of these mornings they left before sunrise and the rest of the forest seemed sound asleep," Janmaat remarked.
By analysing departure times and nest positioning as a function of fruit type and location - while controlling for explanations such as weather conditions - the researchers said they had found evidence that chimpanzees, humans' closest living relatives, "flexibly plan their breakfast time, type and location after weighing multiple disparate pieces of information."
Janmaat added, "Our finding is that chimpanzees don't just live in the here and now. They can plan their actions in advance," enabling them, in times of food shortages, to secure first access to energy-rich nutrition for their large brains.
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