Nate Rott

Yeah, that is right.

But that case is a bit complicated because back then the researchers were given the chimpanzees bananas to sort of speed up the habituation between humans and chimps.

So some researchers have hypothesized that that might have played a role in what happened in Tanzania.

The banana wars, yeah.

I talked to Ann Pusey, a retired primatologist who worked with Jane Goodall in Tanzania during that conflict in Gambe National Park and asked her what she thought of this new study.

She said she was struck by how many similarities there were.

You know, for example, in Gombe, where she worked, there was some natural deaths of adult males before the conflict started.

And the same thing happened in the Ngogo group.

So maybe that frayed the social fabric enough to allow these two groups to like start seeing each other as enemies.

Yeah, like maybe some of the chimpanzees that had a close relationship with others passed away.

And so all of a sudden, those kind of like connecting threads in the community were gone.

But it also could have been about territory or resources.

In both cases, the researchers still aren't really sure what caused this.

But what they do know is that the Gombe conflict didn't end until one group essentially killed off the other.

That has not happened with the Ngogo group.

The fighting is still ongoing.

And the researchers are just trying their best to follow along and see what happens.

No, I mean, I think that's like, I think that's a really natural question.

And it's something that everybody I talked to brought up.

I asked Anne for her thoughts on it.