Chimpanzees eat meat for two simple reasons: they can catch it
and they like it. Chimpanzees are particularly likely to eat
meat during the dry season, when shortages of the foods that
normally make up the bulk of theirdiet cause them to lose
weight. Although the meat may be a useful source of calories
during the dry season, wild chimpanzees don’t need to
includemeat or any other animal-based food in their diet to
fulfill their needs for protein or any of the amino acids. In
fact, plants provide all of the nutrients that are known to be
essential for a chimpanzee, except for vitamin D (which they get
from the abundant sunshine in Africa) and vitamin B12 (which
comes from bacteria). Many people think that I am silly for
asking where gorillas get their protein. They tell me that I
should talk about chimpanzees instead. Often, they inform me
that chimpanzees are far more similar to human beings than
gorillas are, as if I couldn’t tell that just by looking. These
people are missing my point: gorillas are the larg