Today, Jamie built herself yet another nest using a blanket and a box. This sparked a conversation between Diana and I about the similarities and differences of nesting behavior of captive vs. free-living chimpanzees. We couldn’t find many videos on the internet of free-living chimpanzees nesting, however, Jane Goodall’s Discover Chimpanzees Website has a behavior glossary, complete with video footage of the chimpanzees in Gombe engaging in a variety of behaviors, including this clip of nesting. If you compare the following video clips of Jody, Missy and Jamie (in order of appearance) to the video clip from the Discover Chimpanzees Website, you can see many similarities. Notice how the free-living chimpanzee (named Fifi) pulls the branches into her nest and pushes them down to make her bed more comfortable. It truly is an exact science.
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A science that is so interesting to watch (such concentration) and I know the nests they construct must be so comfortable. I only wish that Foxie and Burrito would construct nests as the others do, but then again we all have our own comfort levels. Foxie goes through the process of constructing a elaborate nest just without the materials we would consider comfortable. Burrito……… I have never seen him even try to construct a nest but often will “borrow” someone else’ s nest.
When I was at Chimp Eden, Tamu, one of the youngest climbed into a tree and very painstakingly pulled branches over to make a nest. He took about 20 minutes to make a small nest then inspected it carefully and pulled one more small branch down and patted it into place. Only when he was satisfied did he get into the nest and when he did you could see the nest but not little Tamu. It was so fascinating to watch. After only a few minutes in the nest, Mowgli, another infant, ran up the tree and the nest was left for a game of chase.
The few videos I’ve seen of chimps building a nest in a tree is that I never hear or see a branch broken. They just bend them over, amazing.
Thanks for the videos Jackie. It was great to go through all og Jane Goodall’s website and see the different behaviors. And of course our chimps building their nests is always a treat.
It’s amazing how they instinctively know how to build nests like this! I am just watching this video over and over again…can’t get enough! 🙂 Thank you for posting!