text: While young children must be shown the highway code to cross roads safely, it seems chimpanzees have taught themselves. Researchers studying chimps in Uganda say the apes are having to adapt to cope with increasingly busy roads cutting across their territory. They found at a busy asphalted road through the Sebitoli area of Kibale National Park in Uganda, the chimps have learned to look both ways before crossing. Chimpanzees crossing a busy road in Kibale National Park in Uganda (above) have learned to look for traffic . Scientists discovered the chimps will also often run across roads, while dominant males will wait to ensure younger chimps cross safely. It is the first time chimpanzees have been seen to change their behaviour to adapt to busy roads. Chimpanzees appear to flavour their food with herbs, researchers have suggested. Dr Sabrina Krief, a lecturer at the National Museum of Natural History in Paris, and her colleagues have found that wild chimpanzees in Uganda eat three different types of leaf while consuming meat they had caught. They reason that if this was for medicinal purposes, different animals would eat different plants depending on their ailments. However, the animals in each group all tended to eat the same plants with their meat, suggesting they were eating them for flavour instead. Dr Krief and her team found that separate groups of chimpanzees at Budongo Forest Reserve and Kibale National Park ate plants while chewing meat. Marie Cibot, a biologist at the National Museum of Natural History in Paris, who led the work, said the spread of road infrastructure in Africa was posing a growing threat to wildlife in many countries. She said: 'Although the asphalted road represents a substantial threat to crossing animals, chimpanzees took into account this risk. 'More than 90 per cent of the individuals looked right and left before and while crossing. 'Chimpanzees crossed in small subgroups. Whole parties crossed more rapidly when chimpanzees were more numerous in the crossing groups.' The researchers say the road in Sebitoli sees around 89 motor vehicles an hour racing down it at speeds of between 40mph and 60mph. The researchers said they saw several different primates killed on the roads in the past year. However, chimpanzees living in the surrounding forests appear to have learned about the danger it poses. They watched 122 chimps cross the road over the course of two and half years. They found most of the chimps looked for traffic before crossing and as they crossed. Adult chimps, like this one, tended to wait for younger chimps to cross and checked they got over safely . Females with young and injured adults tended to cross less frequently. Around 20 per cent of the chimps that crossed would turn to check on other members of the group to ensure they were crossing safely. They also tended to form small groups of between two to three chimpanzees that crossed at a time. Chimps have been noticed to cross in similar ways on other non-asphalted roads. However, on quieter roads, adults tend to lead the group in a similar way as they do when checking for predators rather than splitting up into smaller groups. The researchers, whose work is published in the American Journal of Primatology, have appealed for measures to help reduce the impact roads were having on wildlife. Miss Cibot, who worked on the study with Dr Sabrina Krief, a lecturer at the National Museum of Natural History in Paris and the Great Ape Conservation Project in Uganda, said bridges or underpasses could be provided to help keep chimps safe. The team are hoping to work with the Ugandan authorities to test new safety measures. Miss Cibot said: 'These observations are relevant for our understanding of adaptive behavior among chimpanzees in human-impacted habitats. 'Further investigations are needed to better evaluate the effects of busy roads on adolescent female dispersal and on their use of territories. 'Mitigation measures, like bridges, underpasses, reduced speed limits, speed-bumps, signposts, or police controls, should be established in this area.'
target: Chimps were observed crossing busy road in Kibale National Park, Uganda .
  Most of the chimps looked left, right or both ways before crossing the road .
  The chimps crossed in small groups, often running to get across quickly .
  Scientists want to test underpasses and bridges to let chimps cross safely .