But that’s precisely what some chimpanzees may do. You might already know that chimpanzees share plenty of similarities with humans: They play, they fight, they form communities. But did you know that they also use medicine?
Elodie Freymann is a primatologist who studies how chimpanzees self-medicate with plants. While pursuing her PhD at Oxford University in the United Kingdom, she spent several months working at the Budongo Conservation Field Station, living in the middle of the Budongo Forest in Uganda. While there, she observed wild chimpanzees up close to learn more about how they interact with the plants in their environment.
Freymann is also an artist who uses nature drawing to help her deepen her understanding of her observations.
HOW DID YOU BECOME INTERESTED IN STUDYING PRIMATES?
From a young age, I’ve been really interested in primates. I was inspired as a young girl by the work of Jane Goodall, and I had this fantasy of bushwhacking through the jungle and following apes around.
WHAT IS IT LIKE TO WORK IN A FIELD STATION?
When you work in a chimpanzee field station, you wake up at the crack of dawn. You pack your supplies for the day: a camcorder, a notebook, and binoculars. I also packed test tubes and pipettes to collect feces samples so we could test the chimps’ health. You then meet up with a field primatologist and go into the forest with them. Field primatologists at our field station are local Ugandans, many of whom have been working full time at the field station for decades. They are, with no doubt, the unsung heroes of primatology.
HOW DO PRIMATOLOGISTS STUDY CHIMPANZEES?
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Who's Your Cousin?
The great apes are among the most popular animals in most zoos. Their actions, facial expressions, and family life remind us so much of ourselves. Have you ever wondered, though, how we might look to them?
Is it possible to die of boredom?
To figure out if we can die of boredom, we first have to understand what boredom is. For help, we called James Danckert, a psychologist who studies boredom at the University of Waterloo in Canada.
THE PROBLEM WITH PALM OIL
Palm oil is all around you. It’s in sugary snacks like cookies and candy bars. It’s in lipstick and shampoo and pet food.
SERGE WICH
Serge Wich’s favorite days at work are spent out in the forest, studying orangutans in Sumatra and Borneo or chimpanzees in Tanzania.
ELODIE FREYMANN
When you’re feeling sick, it probably doesn’t occur to you to try eating tree bark.
Guardians of the Forest
EARLY, MAKESHIFT WILDLIFE DRONES HELPED TO DETECT AND PROTECT ORANGUTANS.
APE ANTICS
The Whirling World of primate play
Dr. Ape Will See You Now
HUMANS AREN’T THE ONLY PRIMATES THAT USE MEDICATION.
THE LEFT OVERS
A lot has happened for modern humans to get to this point. We lost most of our hair, learned how to make tools, established civilizations, sent a person to the Moon, and invented artificial intelligence. Whew! With all of these changes, our bodies have changed, too. It’s only taken us about six million years.
SO, WHAT IS A PRIMATE?
What do you have in common with the aye-aye, sifaka, siamang, and potto? If you said your collarbone, you re probably a primatologist—a person who studies primates. If you’re not, read on.
