The last subheading in the article is "Who cares?", by which they mean "Which chimpanzees within the social group are responsible for providing medical care?" I didn't notice the final section initially, so I thought I had reached the end of the article then there was just an exasperated large print:
this post was submitted on 14 May 2025
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Pretty soon they won't bring out the leaves until they verify the other chimp's insurance status with the local snakes.
Hah, these idiots. They're gonna invent credit scores!
That's certainly a better way to learn about ourselves. Specifically by learning how the chimpanzees select the medicinal leaves and so on.
My roommate in university was studying a group of chimps in Tanzania who ate small quantities of a plant periodically that happened to be a potent dewormer. Apparently it didn’t taste very good, and they were botanists not ethologists, so didn’t verify how they know, just that it was very deliberate, socially reinforced, and it worked. (Late 1980’s study!)
WITCHES! They better spend a hundred years killing the smartest members of society. Oh wait.. They haven't invented religion yet, nvm
Toke it up, ape.