As a rule, Negra does not like to be touched by humans. For over three decades, Negra lived in a research laboratory where human touch was usually painful or scary. Sometimes she seeks out touch from her caregivers at the sanctuary by pressing her back against the caging for a little massage, only to panic and threat bark at us when we actually make contact. Some of her anxiety in this area seems to have subsided over the years, but still, we are always a little amazed (and a lot honored) when she allows us to touch her.
Grooming
Playful Jamie
Chimpanzees exhibit a variety of innate behaviors and vocalizations in different contexts. During play, for example, chimpanzees will often head nod to one another and laugh, which for a chimpanzee is a breathy pant with the top teeth covered by the upper lip. In grooming, chimpanzees will often lip-smack, teeth-clack, or blow raspberries. These behaviors seem to be used to communicate with other individuals that they are interacting in a certain context. Co-director Diana wrote a blog entry last year on grooming, which includes more detailed information about these behaviors and what they mean. As caregivers, we also use these behaviors and vocalizations during interactions to connect with the chimpanzees using their communication methods, which helps build rapport.
In the following video, Jamie plays with staff caregiver Elizabeth. In the beginning of the clip you can hear Elizabeth breathy panting during this tug-of-war/tickle interaction. Jamie then decided that intern Holly’s boot needed some TLC, so look closely at Jamie’s face and mouth to see her lip smacking as she grooms.
Intrepid Explorers
Hi everyone! My name is Whitney and I am filling in for Keri as a temporary staff caregiver for the chimpanzees while she is on maternity leave. I began volunteering at CSNW about two years ago, and one of my favorite things about coming here is witnessing the chimpanzees’ confidence grow.
Today was no exception. As background to this story, any time we enter part of the chimpanzees’ enclosure to clean, every staff member, intern, and volunteer present in the building must perform a series of safety checks before the room in question can be unlocked. Part of the checks involve visually identifying all seven chimpanzees in rooms other than the one we want to enter.
This morning I went to identify the chimpanzees so we could enter the playroom for cleaning, and after extensive searching I could only find two of them in the building. Lo and behold, five of the seven were way out on the hill! It took some time, but I eventually saw Burrito, Jody, Missy, Foxie, and Annie as they explored the hill, occasionally appearing between bamboo and climbing up their magnificent climbing structures. I remember that just two years ago it was a delightful surprise to see any of the Seven out exploring the hill, even close to the greenhouse, and now it seems to be a daily occurrence that they are not only on the hill but are now confident enough to explore their home far and wide.
I couldn’t get any pictures while they were out on the hill this morning, but here are a few of my favorites from this afternoon. Some grooming, some lunch, some play time with friends.
Annie (right) grooming her best friend Missy (left):
Burrito, caught in a rare playful mood (just kidding, he’s almost always in a playful mood):
Foxie grooming her foot:
Jamie, ever inventive, enjoyed her lunch at a makeshift table:
Reconciliation
Every once and a while, there’s a little more tension in the group than usual. Fights break out more often, and when they do, they result in more injuries. But chimps have a mechanism for dealing with this tension.
After a big conflict last weekend, they’ve been working hard to reestablish their relationships through grooming.
Chances are, some of the wounds they are grooming on each other are wounds they themselves inflicted.
But that’s life for a chimp. You fight, and you make up. Then, maybe, you fight again.
But you always make up.
Burrito’s recovery continues today
Burrito continues to recover from a dental procedure he had this past Friday. He was reunited with the ladies yesterday and this morning he greeted caregivers and staff with foot stomps and head nods and initiated a few rounds of chase. He’s not quite at full speed yet, but as the hours tick away, he’s recovering more and more.
Love and attention from a good friend like Foxie sure seems to help the process. Foxie spent a good part of this morning grooming Burrito, while he sat relaxing on the deck in the Greenhouse. And all of that relaxation allowed for him to spend quite a bit of time foraging for lunch on Young’s Hill, longer than any of the other chimps in fact. Perhaps it was the roasted sweet potatoes and apples that kept him on the hill for so long.
taking care of each other
Today Annie and Missy spent a good part of the hot afternoon grooming each other in the greenhouse.
Notice in the photo below that Missy is grooming her own arm with a twig while Annie grooms her head. Classic Missy.
Missy had a bit of an injury to her left eye (nothing serious), so Annie was very interested in that, but she took her time working her way around to grooming that spot:
Once she got there, she didn’t hold back:
It turns out that Annie had a bit of an injury on the back of her left year, which I noticed because Missy noticed it. In this photo and in the one above when Annie starts grooming Missy’s eye, both chimpanzees have a relaxed face with slightly parted lips – a sign of concentration.
Though injuries and even old scabs are really interesting, there’s always different areas to check out – here’s Annie removing something that was stuck to the hair on Missy’s arm:
Who needs a spa when you have such fastidious friends?
Grooming is so cool
We’ve talked about the importance of grooming among chimpanzees before, and it’s pretty well known what an essential aspect of life grooming is for most primates. Below is a video of very good friends Burrito and Foxie grooming, with Missy (off-camera), occasionally also grooming Burrito.
There’s a lot of cool things about grooming. In a comment on a post back in 2009, I mentioned some of the following:
The basics: aside from the social aspects, grooming is the removal of dirt and debris and the tending to wounds (licking and picking scabs). It’s why chimpanzees don’t need baths – they do a really good job of cleaning themselves and each other – no water necessary.
The debris found on the grooming partner is not necessarily consumed, even though the lips are usually involved in grooming because chimpanzees use their prehensile lips, almost like another set of fingers, for many activities like inspecting objects, turning the pages of a magazine (in captivity), and especially in grooming.
Increased grooming often occurs after a conflict to reassure and/or “make up” with one another and to cement social bonds. Grooming has a calming affect, which is easy to see when you observe chimpanzees grooming one another. A study of wild chimpanzees that used non-invasive methods to collect urine samples after grooming bouts found that oxytocin (sometimes referred to as “the love hormone”) levels were higher in bonded grooming partners than in samples collected of chimpanzees who had not been grooming or had been grooming with a “non-bond partner.”
Regarding lip movements during grooming: it is common for chimpanzees, as well as other primates, to “lip smack” or “teeth clack” or make other “sympathetic mouth movements” when grooming (also when performing other fine motor behaviors – like many of us who move our tongue a certain way when we’re really concentrating on a task).
Each chimpanzee does his/her own thing, Burrito is a lip smacker (he may teeth clack on occasion too), Foxie is a teeth clacker, and Annie makes raspberry sounds with her lips. The intensity of the mouth movement/noise will increase if something (especially a wound or scab) is found during grooming.
Some scientists have hypothesized that these sympathetic mouth movements were an evolutionary step towards spoken language. Our friend Gabriel Waters and [former] Central WA University professor Dr. Fouts published a study on this theory a few years back: http://cat.inist.fr/?aModele=afficheN&cpsidt=1349990, and there was a book with this premise called Grooming, Gossip, and the Evolution of Language, which I admittedly still need to read, that argued that gossip for humans is what grooming is for chimpanzees and other non-human primates.
So, with all that information, here’s the video of Burrito and Foxie strengthening their friendship through grooming today: