In November 2019, a scientist was sitting in the jungle of Gabon, watching a chimpanzee inspect her son's wounded foot. Suddenly, she quickly caught an insect out of the air, squeezed it in her mouth, and then put it carefully in the cut. In the months that followed, the scientists followed chimpanzees with a wound. Repeatedly, they saw them put insects into it-- applying, removing and reapplying them to the injury as If squeezing out the goodness.
They were, the scientists guessed, using the insects to medicate. "What we think Is that maybe they're mixing it with their saliva (唾液) and pressing something out of the insect", said Simone Pika, from the University of Osnabruck, in Germany. There are some substances that might have anti-inflammatory (消炎的)or pan-killing functions. "
The findings have been published in the journal Current Biology. It is the first time that such behavior has been documented in chimpanzees, although other apes have been known-to "self-medicate" using plants.
So far the researchers haven't found out how chimpanzees formed such behavior. Pika thinks it is possible that the behavior developed by chance, perhaps because a chimpanzee rubbed an insect into a wound for fun but accidentally found T helped relieve the pain, or seemed to make it heal faster. Afterwards, others may have copied it.
Now Pika and her colleagues want to try to identify the insect and work out what it does. Another option, she admits, is that the insect makes no difference at all, and it is simply a cultural practice that has become fashionable. While it might seem odd that chimpanzees would rub insects into their wounds, we fail to judge whether it is helpful in healing the injuries.