Why this chimp tribe killed and cannibalized their leader
Warning: Graphic content
A tribe of chimpanzees killed and cannibalized their former leader — nicknamed Saddam for his “imperious air” — a rare incident possibly motivated by sex.
The 2013 attack — only the ninth recorded case of a chimp community killing one of its own — happened in Senegal, and was reported recently in the International Journal of Primatology, according to National Geographic.
“It was striking,” said the study’s lead author, Professor Jill Pruetz, director of the Fongoli Savanna Chimpanzee Project, which released disturbing video footage of the incident.
“The female that cannibalized the body the most, she’s the mother of the top two high-ranking males. Her sons were the only ones that really didn’t attack the body aggressively.”
In the 54-second video, the dead chimp, identified as a 17-year-old male named Foudouko, is dragged around like a rag doll by his hungry comrades, who turn him into Sunday dinner, feasting on his torso and limbs, the footage reveals.
The primates finish off the attack by pounding his corpse with rocks and sticks.
Foudouko was considered an alpha male who was known as “somewhat of a tyrant” among the other apes, the researchers noted. But he lost power when his second-in-command, Mamadou, was injured.
He eventually was brought back into the fold thanks to his primate bro, David.
Yet several of the other apes apparently harbored resentments and plotted their revenge against Foudouko.
“We just happened to have at the time five young males all coming up in the hierarchy and those guys together didn’t want to let Foudouko back in,” said Pruetz. “[Foudouko] was trying to come back in at a high rank, which was ultimately a foolish thing to do on his part.”
At dawn one day, Pruetz said, she heard Foudouko screaming, and found his ravaged corpse in a sleep nest nearby.
Chimps will attack rival tribes, but it is uncommon for them to attack members of their own social group, the researchers noted. Pruetz said Foudouko’s killers could have been motivated by sex, with one theory being that the ex-alpha male approached a female chimp in heat.
Because male chimps outnumber females in the region, the younger males took exception, and went ape, the researchers suggest.