Wild African ape reactions to novel camera traps

African wild apes notice and often react to novel items in their environment

Date:  March 14, 2019

Source:  Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology

An international team of researchers from the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany, analyzed video from remote camera-trap devices placed in ape-populated forests throughout Africa to see how wild apes would react to these unfamiliar objects. Responses varied by species, and even among individuals within the same species, but one thing was consistent throughout: the apes definitely noticed the cameras.

"Our goal was to see how chimpanzees, bonobos, and gorillas react to unfamiliar objects in the wild since novel object experiments are often used in comparative psychology research, and we wanted to know if there were any differences among the three great apes," says Ammie Kalan, a primatologist at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology. "We were specifically surprised by the differences in reactions we observed between the chimps and bonobos. Since they're sister species and share a lot of the same genetic makeup, we expected them to react similarly to the camera, but this wasn't the case."

"The chimpanzees were overall uninterested in the camera traps -- they barely seemed to notice their presence and were generally unbothered by them," Kalan says. "Yet the bonobos appeared to be much more troubled by camera traps; they were hesitant to approach and would actively keep their distance from them."

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