Washington University - News & Information

Washington University - News & Information During two field seasons in the Goualougo Triangle (February-December 1999 and June 2000-June 2001), Morgan and Sanz encountered chimpanzees on 218 different occasions, totaling 365 hours of direct observation. Their goal, as with other researchers at various field sites in Africa, was to directly observe the full repertoire of chimpanzee behavior, which includes eating meat, sharing food, grooming, mating and using tools, such as large pounding sticks to break open bee hives and leaf sponges to gather water.

During Morgan and Sanz's first five minutes observing individual chimpanzees at their field site, curiosity was the most common response the researchers recorded from 84 percent of the chimpanzees. The curious responses from the chimpanzees included staring at the human observers, crouching and moving closer to get a better view of them, slapping tree trunks or throwing branches down to elicit a response, and making inquisitive vocalizations.

"Such an overwhelmingly curious response to the arrival of researchers had never been reported from another chimpanzee study site," says Sanz. "