Chimpanzees live in the forests of Africa and do well in many different types of habitat. They are apes closely related to humans. Like us, chimps share a genetic link with people and have many similar qualities, including how they talk to each other using hand gestures and body language.
Chimpanzees eat over 200 different types of food. They are extremely intelligent and learn a lot from watching other chimps. One of the biggest ways they are similar to humans is in their choice of diet, let's find out more about what chimps eat.
Diet
Even though chimpanzees live in many different habitats, fruit makes up the biggest part of their diet. They also eat leaves, buds, stems, pith, bark, and seeds. But chimpanzees are skilled frugivores (fruit lovers) and always choose fruit first when they can get it.
Eating meat is quite common for chimpanzees. When they are not eating plants, they hunt insects, honey, birds, bird eggs, and even other mammals. The mammals they eat include red colobus monkeys, blue duikers, red-tailed monkeys, warthogs, yellow baboons, and bushbucks. The red colobus monkey is their clear favorite prey.
Chimps have excellent memories and a great sense of direction. They use both of these skills to find food and to guide their family group safely back home.
Take the Chimpanzee Diet Quiz!
5 quick questions about what chimps eat and how they hunt. Can you get them all right?
Hunting Strategy
Chimpanzees are famous for using many different tools when they hunt. They prefer to hunt in forest areas where the canopy (the treetop layer) is thin and sparse. This makes it harder for prey like the red colobus monkey to escape through the trees.
Chimps often team up and hunt together as a group. They corner the prey first, then attack. To help them hunt and gather food, they pick up and modify everyday materials like rocks, twigs, leaves, and grass.
Tool Use for Honey and Nuts
To get honey from the hives of stingless bees, chimpanzees use bare twigs (stripped of their leaves) and pieces of bark. The twigs and bark help them scoop the honey out quickly and easily. To reach honey inside African honeybee hives, chimps use a similar dipping technique. But because the sting of the African honeybee is far worse than any other bee, they use longer and thinner sticks. This keeps their hands safely away from the angry bees.
Learning to dip for ants with a twig is much trickier and may take a chimp years to master. Chimpanzees also learn to crack open hard nuts. They do this using rocks, tree branches, or exposed and hardened tree roots as hammers and anvils.
When they are thirsty, chimpanzees crush leaves and soak them in water. The leaves act like a sponge, and the chimp sucks the water back out of them to drink.
Frequently Asked Questions
What do chimpanzees eat?
Chimpanzees eat over 200 different foods. Fruits are their favorite, but they also eat leaves, insects, honey, birds, and mammals like the red colobus monkey.
Do chimpanzees hunt other animals?
Yes. Chimpanzees hunt in groups, often cornering prey like red colobus monkeys in sparse-canopy forest. They also eat warthogs, baboons, and small antelopes.
How do chimpanzees use tools to get food?
Chimps use twigs to extract honey from bee hives, rocks to crack nuts, and crushed leaves as sponges to absorb drinking water.
Conservation
Chimpanzees are currently listed as Endangered on the IUCN Red List. They still have a long way to go before they reach the "least concern" category. Because their habitat has such a big effect on what they can eat, protecting African forests is essential for their survival.
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Fun fact for today!Chimpanzees eat over 200 different types of food, and they're one of the few apes that hunt other animals!