Chimpanzees Are Now In A Civil WAR!

Added: 2026-05-12

[00:00:00]Hi, it's Katrina. [music] We used to think that humans were the only species capable of organized war, but we were wrong. In Uganda, a community of chimpanzees is currently locked in a brutal and violent civil [music] war.

[00:00:13]It's a campaign of strategic violence, targeted assassinations, and territorial expansion. This conflict is so brutal, it forces us to redefine what it means to be human. [music] In a recent video, I talked about how chimpanzees have officially entered their own Stone Age, making weapons and tools once thought to be uniquely human.

[00:00:35]They've also been seen practicing advanced medicine [music] and even understanding fire. Is this a mirror of our own species? [music] Is violence a byproduct of intelligence?

[00:00:47]Let's dive in. The chimpanzee civil war happening right now. In the hot, humid jungles of Uganda, there lives the largest known group of wild chimpanzees.

[00:00:58]And now, they are at war. It's not clear what happened to this previously close-knit community of simians. For years, as long as anyone can remember, the Ngogo chimpanzees at Uganda's Kibale National Park were best pals. They ate their fruit together, picked off each other's bugs, but then, something happened.

[00:01:19]>> [music] >> Out of nowhere, the chimpanzees splintered. They didn't just have a falling out, they split into two rival factions. As of April 2026 right now, they have spent eight years deadlocked in a primate conflict where nobody is winning. But I'll tell you now, the cost of life has been tremendous. Ever since this conflict broke out in 2018, scientists have recorded 24 deaths, 17 of which have been infant fatalities.

[00:01:49]It's horrific, but true. When apes go to war, they seem to target babies with extreme prejudice. Scientists aren't sure why, but they're trying to find out. The man at the forefront of all this is Aaron Sandel, an anthropologist from the University of Texas. Aaron recently published a study in the journal of Science claiming the intensity and duration of the current chimp-on-chimp violence could reveal secrets about our past. Specifically, scientists could learn how early human conflict first developed way back when we were hardly any more sophisticated than these Ngogo chimpanzees.

[00:02:28]And keep in mind, these were chimps that eight years ago would hold each other's hands, and now they are murdering each other in open war. Aaron wears many hats, one of them being co-director of the Ngogo Chimpanzee Project. He's the guy who's been there since the beginning. So, Aaron's got a lot of info on chimps. He said they are extremely territorial, though typically only with other groups. In the Science podcast, Aaron said it's as if chimps are fearful of strangers, so they attack and kill them. But that's only when it comes to outsiders or strangers, which honestly isn't too different from human behavior.

[00:03:09]If you were hanging out with a bunch of your friends and some random person you've never seen before suddenly showed up, you might react harshly. Even if you don't mean to, you might treat this person differently or even badly.

[00:03:22]The stranger is almost always at the bottom of the totem pole in human society. It's almost like treating strangers with caution or even fear is hardwired in our DNA. It's the same thing for chimpanzees, but a lot more violent. When male chimpanzees see other male chimpanzees in the wild that aren't part of their group, it's usually kill or be killed. But inside the national park, these roughly 200 chimpanzees had lived in harmony for for For decades, they hung out in the trees, palled around on the forest floor, and conducted general monkey business in peace. But in 2015, the vibe shifted.

[00:04:01]That was when Aaron Sandel began to notice the chimpanzees on the western side of the park were being chased around by the group living in the center of the park. At first, Aaron didn't see it as a big deal. He said [music] that chimpanzees are often melodramatic with lots of screaming and chasing going on.

[00:04:20]But at the end of the day, they would always go back to cooperating and grooming each other. Whatever happened in 2015, it was the start of something bad. After some chasing incidents, which seemed normal enough, there was a long period of avoidance. For 6 weeks, the western apes refused to interact with the central apes.

[00:04:42]Then, when the apes did interact with one another, things were more intense and more aggressive. Finally, in 2018, the apes were officially split into two distinct groups. They were no longer cooperating in any way, shape, or form.

[00:04:57]And then came the attacks. In 2018, members of the western chimpanzee groups started attacking the central chimps.

[00:05:06]These attacks were aimed at killing the opposition. They weren't even attacks as much as they were hunts. Members of the western faction started launching violent patrols. They were like ape Gestapo, searching for anyone who didn't have their papers in order. They would march single file along the edge of enemy territory looking for victims. One of those victims was Bassey, a rather large male chimpanzee who had been living in the forest peacefully for 36 years. He began his last day of life in 2019 as he always did, waking up at the crack of dawn in a tree nest that he'd built himself using branches and leaves.

[00:05:45]Bassey wasn't alone in his nest. He woke up surrounded by other chimps and his family. He yawned, got up, and spent the day swinging between the trees and eating figs. And then came the death squad. A patrol of 13 adult chimps from the opposing side arrived just as twilight began to fall. I almost don't want to tell you about what happened because it was horrible. Bassey was surrounded by adult chimpanzees who ferociously attacked him. They bit him, pulled his limbs, and shrieked like demons. Aaron, who happened to witness this atrocity, said he felt like he was watching a battle attack in real time, like a war correspondent.

[00:06:28]Bassey was the second casualty in the bloody Ugandan civil war. He wouldn't be the last. Fast forward to 2026, things are looking grim for the central chimps.

[00:06:38]They have been decimated by violent attacks from the western group and have suffered heavy casualties. There have been 24 targeted attacks like the one that killed Bassey since the schism began. These attacks are brutal, orchestrated, and relentless. When the western group decides it's go time, they choose a target and kill it. So far, they have murdered 17 infants and seven adults. And the war isn't over yet.

[00:07:06]Meanwhile, on the other side, the central group hasn't killed anyone. It's hard to even call it a war at this point because it feels like chimp genocide.

[00:07:16]Aaron and the other scientists are currently terrified that the central group is on the brink of extinction. If they don't fight back or somehow call a ceasefire, they might get wiped out. But why? Why did this violence emerge in such a peaceful chimp society? Aaron has a lot of guesses. He thinks that factors such as the size of the groups could play a role. Maybe they feel like they're competing for resources, so they've decided it's an all-or-nothing game of survival. Other researchers have suggested that male competition for reproducing with females might be [music] to blame. One group might feel that they need a few more wives. So, they're hoping to get rid of the other male apes and steal their girlfriends.

[00:07:58]These are all pretty common reasons for chimpanzee warfare, but I'm more interested in the catalyst, the spark that set the blaze in the first place.

[00:08:07]What caused a previously cooperating group to split into warring factions? It may have begun with the deaths of five adult males and one adult female in 2014.

[00:08:18]Researchers aren't sure how these apes died, [music] but their absence disrupted social networks within the larger group. This may have weakened the social ties within subgroups, leading to a slow but steady decline in cohesion.

[00:08:34]You know how in every group there's that one person who's the social glue? Maybe in your family or friend group there is that one person who organizes the holidays and keeps the group chat alive.

[00:08:45]When they're gone, without that one person making the effort to tie everyone together, the rest of the family tends to just go their own way. Scientists think this leader may have been one of the deaths in 2014. Their sudden disappearance caused a weakening of the social structure. And then, the year after, there was another disaster when the alpha male changed. With a shift in the alpha male, the first period of separation between the two groups began.

[00:09:14]It wasn't war yet, but the groups did stop talking for a bit. This is also fairly common in chimpanzee communities because a change in hierarchy typically increases aggression and uncertainty.

[00:09:27]Just like the economic turmoil that can follow the election of a new leader or the uncertainty that comes when you get a new boss. It's easy for for to understand just how the chimpanzees might be feeling. Nobody likes change.

[00:09:40]Then came the biggest calamity of all, and probably the catalyst that launched the war. In 2017, the chimpanzees were hit by an epidemic. It was some kind of respiratory disease that made its way through the population. 25 chimpanzees died, including a large number of females. With a sudden lack of females, the males may have gotten a little upset. One of the adult males who died also happened to be one of the last individuals that connected the two groups. With his death and the abrupt decrease in breeding females, the chimps might have lost it. Aaron said that what he and his colleagues witnessed over the last decade with these apes should be a wake-up call to rethink what we know about human conflict.

[00:10:28]What would you say is the number one cause of conflict among humans?

[00:10:32]Religion, money, pride, land?

[00:10:35]You get a lot of philosophers who blame human warfare and violence on things like politics and religion. And while it's true that such things do play a role, I mean, just look at the Crusades, what's being witnessed right now with these chimpanzees suggests that conflict has a deeper origin. Ngogo chimpanzees lived together, fed each other, groomed their neighbors' babies, and enjoyed peace and prosperity. Then they turned on each other violently, without religion or politics having anything to do with it. It seems that us versus them is a deeply embedded evolutionary survival mechanism. Human conflict goes back even further than religion or formal politics. What we are seeing in the chimpanzees suggests that our brains are biologically wired for tribalism.

[00:11:25]There is a primal instinct that demands we divide the world into allies and enemies. We are haunted by an evolutionary ghost that finds threat in anything that's different. But it doesn't need to be that way forever.

[00:11:37]James Brooks, a researcher from the German Primate Center, said our evolutionary past does not determine our future. In other words, just because we still have some of that chimpanzee violence in us, it doesn't mean we need to be this way forever. We can break the cycle, but can the chimpanzees? There is hope. Remember Bassey? He was left for dead, bleeding and weakened on the ground. But when the attacking chimps left, he wasn't dead yet. A 53-year-old chimpanzee approached Bassey and helped him slowly walk back into the heart of the Central Chimps territory. Back home, the older chimp helped Bassey lay down and then stayed with him the whole night. In the morning, the older chimp was found lying next to Bassey as he slowly died. He even extended his hand trying to get Bassey to rise and follow him. This was an obvious act of compassion, love, and caring. It goes to show that chimpanzees have the same duality as humans. We go to war, we study to be doctors, we commit great acts of selflessness, and then we argue over who's going to pay for that extra basket of wings. For most of the chimpanzees life, they don't know violence. Just like for most people, they go through life not experiencing horrible violence. But then, something happens that flips the script and suddenly things get dark. I don't know how the chimpanzee civil war is going to end, but it seems like the Central Group is doomed. The Western Group is growing in numbers and are the primary aggressors. If history is any indicator, the Western Group will annihilate the Central Group taking the entire territory for themselves. The war is likely to end not with a peace treaty, but with annexation. What do you think?

[00:13:30]Are you surprised that chimps turned on each other after decades of being together? If you were watching this happen, would you try to stop it? I'd love to hear your thoughts in the comments. And before we lose all hope in our closest cousins, it's important to remember that conflict isn't the only thing we share. When these great apes aren't busy defending borders, they are acting as their own doctors. Chimpanzee doctors discovered. Almost more shocking than finding out chimpanzees descend into civil war is learning that they have their own doctors. According to scientists, chimpanzees in the forests of Uganda have been found healing themselves with medicinal herbs. Okay, maybe they didn't go to medical school, but they know exactly what they are doing. Scientists have observed injured and sick animals self-medicating with plants, and they're using the right plants for the job, too. The plants they've been eating have special pain-relieving properties, and some are even antibacterial. The discovery began when chimpanzee researchers noticed an injured animal looking for something specific from the forest to eat.

[00:14:35]Researchers later collected samples of the plant the ape had been searching for, and it turned out that it had antibacterial properties, which means that chimpanzees know what natural things to use to heal their bodies. If you were injured in the forest, would you know which plants to eat to get some natural antibiotics, or would you, like most of us, accidentally eat poison ivy or something and have a bad time? What's even crazier is that these plants could help scientists develop medicine for humans. If they're good enough for apes, they're probably good enough for us, too. But, like Dr. Elodie Freymann from the University of Oxford said, scientists can't test every single thing in the forest for medicinal properties, but they can test the specific plants that chimps are seeking out, which is precisely what Dr. Freymann has been doing. She spent almost 4 years carefully observing two communities of wild chimps in the Budongo Central Forest Reserve. During her work, she paid particular attention to animals in distress, suffering from physical pain or limping. The good doctor would then collect samples of urine from the apes in distress to check for any sickness or infection. She and her colleagues also paid close attention to when these injured chimpanzees began eating things they didn't normally eat, like the skin of a fruit or some tree bark. Then, they took whatever they were eating and tested it. Sure enough, the plants were medicinal. But, how in the world did the apes know that? These are chimpanzees, not Dr. House. Let me tell you about one case in particular. Elodie noticed a chimpanzee who had a badly wounded hand.

[00:16:15]He was limping, he couldn't use his hand to move around, and he was clearly in some distress. When the other chimpanzees sat around to eat, the one with the bad hand was busy looking for ferns, specifically a fern known as Christella parasitica. When scientists tested the plant back at their lab, they were pleasantly surprised to find it had very potent anti-inflammatory properties. I mean, how smart is that?

[00:16:40]It wasn't just [music] a minor anti-inflammatory, it was a major one, likely helping to ease the ape's pain and hasten his recovery. Again, how did he know? Humans don't inherently know which plants will heal them, so why do chimpanzees? Over the 4 years of study, Elodie and the other researchers collected 17 samples from 13 different plant species. They sent them back to Germany, where they were tested by Dr. Fabian Schulz at the New Brandenburg University of Applied Sciences. 90% of the extracts in those plant samples inhibited bacterial growth. That is an incredible percentage. A third of them were found to have natural anti-inflammatory properties for promoting quick healing and reducing pain. Here's an even better figure for you. 100% of the chimps who were injured or sick during [music] the study fully recovered and a part of it was because of the plants that they ate. The male monkey who ate ferns to help his wounded hand was using that hand again just a few days later. Why do chimpanzees have better natural medical knowledge than we do? Humans or more specifically Homo sapiens share nearly 99% of our DNA with chimpanzees. We have similar behaviors, but apparently not similar instincts.

[00:17:58]What's up with that? And listen to this.

[00:18:01]Chimps also treat their open wounds with insects. In the West African nation of Gabon, scientists observed apes using bugs to heal themselves. It began in 2019 with an adult female chimpanzee by the name of Suzy. Researchers watched Suzy inspect a wound on her son's foot and then quick as lightning Suzy grabbed an insect out of the air, put it in her mouth, squeezed it, and put it into the wound. She then extracted the insect from the wound and applied it twice more. Scientists weren't sure what to think, but over the next 15 months they witnessed the chimpanzees of Loango National Park do the exact same thing 19 other times. Perhaps the most shocking part is that two [music] other occasions involved an injured chimp being treated by one of their fellow apes. This is pretty special because even animals that are supposed to be wildly intelligent, like for example our dogs, will freak out when you try to touch their wounds.

[00:19:01]But the apes seem to understand that what was happening was beneficial. This seems to suggest a much more sophisticated understanding of what's going on around them than other animals.

[00:19:12]As for the insects used in the wounds, they likely contained anti-inflammatory substances, just like the plants eaten by the other [music] apes. Insects are known to have medicinal properties, but very little research has been done on them. Scientists still need to do far more work before they can know what's actually happening with the insect in the wound. And let me just state for the record, I am not recommending that you rub any bugs, creepy crawlies, spiders, or flies into your wounds. If you do, that's on you. But, let us know how it goes if you do it. Can chimpanzees make fire? In 2009, scientists made a startling discovery when they realized that chimpanzees stayed cool under fire, and I mean it. Chimpanzees were found to behave alarmingly relaxed around fire while being able to predict how it spreads. The only other animal that I can think of that does this are humans.

[00:20:05]Most other creatures flee in terror around fire, but not chimps. Scientists think it's because chimpanzees are on the verge of learning how to master fire, [music] just like our ancestors did in ancient times. I say ancient times because there is no fixed date exactly for early humans learning how to control fire. The oldest known evidence comes [music] from a site in Barnham in the UK. Researchers discovered evidence of flint and iron pyrite being used to strike sparks, which started fires. That was 400,000 years ago. But, it wasn't even us. It was our close relatives, the Neanderthals, who were responsible.

[00:20:45][music] To be clear, this probably wasn't the first time that hominids made fire. It's just the earliest evidence of it. Some scientists claim that humans have been manipulating flames for over a million years. We may get a better idea of when and how our ancestors first controlled fire by watching chimpanzees very closely right now. The scientists observing the apes nearly two decades ago now was primatologist Jill Pruetz from Iowa State University. Jill was observing Savannah chimpanzees in Senegal at the same time that people were setting wildfires. The wildfires were part of an annual tradition to clear the land and make it easier for hunters to catch food. Many of the areas within the chimpanzees territory got burned up, at least a little bit.

[00:21:32]Luckily, these were controlled blazes and not out of control infernos. What struck Jill as so strange was that as the fires burned hot and engulfed the trees, the chimpanzees were completely relaxed. Jill even said they were a lot more relaxed than she was being that close to the flames. This is nuts because just about every animal on the planet reacts to fire with fear. The chimpanzees weren't just chill, they predicted where the fire would spread and made sure to avoid it, like something as innocent as smoke off a barbecue. Jill said that at one point she had to fight her way through a crowd of chimpanzees because the fire was so hot on her back that she had to get out of there, but the chimps weren't even phased. So, how does this tie in with our control of [music] fire and how close are apes to figuring it out themselves? Researchers believe that humans gained control over fire through three distinct stages. The first stage was an understanding and acceptance of fire itself. Before human beings could ever start their own fires, they first had to learn not to be terrified of it.

[00:22:39]That's why the first stage of controlling fire is accepting fire.

[00:22:44]Humans would have initially learned not to outright run from fire. Once fire didn't scare us senseless, we learned to predict its movement. By the end of stage one, humans had learned to allow themselves to remain in close proximity to fire when it suited them, knowing that it wouldn't hurt them unless they physically touched it. That was stage one, getting cozy around flames. The second stage was the ability to control fire by containing it, and the ability to extinguish it by depriving it of fuel. In this second stage, humans couldn't make fire themselves, they simply found fire, either from a natural forest fire or perhaps a volcano. They learned that they could move the flames, and they figured out how to put them out, either by dumping water on them or depriving them of oxygen. The third stage was the ability to start a fire from scratch. Humans figured out that if they smashed two specific types of rocks together, they could create a spark, which would start the fire. And since they [music] weren't scared of it and knew how to extinguish it, they could control it. Jill Pruetz says that chimpanzees are currently at the first stage. They've already realized that fire isn't necessarily a reason to shriek and run away. They've developed an awareness of fire and a subtle understanding of its power. Chimpanzees have even developed their very first fire dance, although oddly, it's called a rain dance. The term was coined by famous primatologist Jane Goodall, who bore witness to the very first war of the chimps. If you want to know about that first war, check out my recent video about chimpanzees entering the Stone Age for a full breakdown. Jane noticed that male chimpanzees broke out into what she called a rain dance. It appears to be a display of dominance, with males busting out the rain dance for a variety of different reasons. One of those reasons is when a big thunderstorm is coming, and that's why Jane called it a rain dance. What Jill saw during her time with the chimps was similar. She witnessed the rain dance, and then she saw the fire dance. When there was fire raging near the apes, Jill saw the dominant male take up [music] the classic rain dance pose, but it was directed at the fire. So, Jill called it the fire dance. It was the same moves, the same strange [ __ ] display of dominance, but Jill saw it directed at the raging inferno rather than at the thunderclouds or something else. And that's not all. Jill heard a vocalization from the dominant male chimpanzee during the fire dance that she had never heard before through all of her time with the apes. It was a completely new sound, almost as if the male chimp was trying to talk to the fire. But, even after witnessing all of these incredible behaviors, Jill said she does not see chimpanzees controlling fire anytime soon. Not alone in the wild at least, but perhaps in captivity with a little human help. Ever seen a chimpanzee smoking? Chimps at a zoo in South Africa were caught lighting and extinguishing cigarettes without getting burned. I'm not sure if cigarette smoking is the best thing for chimpanzees to get hooked on straight out of the gate, but it shows how easily they can be influenced by us. Maybe, with a little nudge from humanity, chimps will go from the Stone Age into the Bronze Age faster than evolution would have allowed all on its own.

[00:26:15]Chimps wipe their bums. I was a little nervous about bringing this up because it's kind of weird, but I think you might be impressed. Researchers looking into the hygiene and health care habits of chimpanzees have found something really interesting. Chimpanzees are wiping their own bums. Scientists from the University of Oxford have found evidence that humans are not unique in their hygiene and may actually be less hygienic than most other animals.

[00:26:44]Chimpanzees have been found to wipe their bottoms and clean themselves up after getting intimate. The author of this incredible study was our old pal, Dr. Elodie Freymann. In fact, [music] this discovery came as part of Dr. Freymann's larger study on chimp health and their medicinal practices. She found chimps using leaves to wipe their underparts like toilet paper after getting familiar with one another, and she saw them using the same kinds of leaves to wipe their behinds after doing their business in the bush. Dr. Caroline Schuppli from Germany's Max Planck Institute of Animal Behavior said the research could help scientists better understand [music] the development of human cooperation. She said the existence of these behaviors in chimpanzees suggests that the cognitive capacities for performing the behaviors are shared. Basically, what that means is that things like helping, [music] self-maintenance, grooming, and general cleanliness can possibly be traced back to our earliest origins. [music] And that might be why certain people today are so filthy, because they've strayed too far from our fur-eating [snorts] friends. How long until chimps can talk? After a shocking analysis of thousands of wild chimp gestures in East Africa, scientists came to a kind of scary conclusion. Chimpanzees communicate just like humans. They aren't talking yet, but they appear to have mastered banter. The last thing I would have expected chimpanzees to master would be back-and-forth exchanges, but here we are. Scientists found chimps using such quick-fire communication gestures, it was like they were rehearsing for a Seinfeld reboot.

[00:28:20]There isn't anything vocal about these exchanges. Instead, the hand gestures of wild chimps are made with the same kind of regularity seen in human conversations when people are bantering with each other. You know, when you say one thing, then your friend says something back right away, and you reply just as fast. That's the kind of rhythm that scientists identified in the chimp gestures. It suggests that humans and apes share fundamental aspects of communication. I know you may not think that chimps can communicate on the same level as humans, but they have an astounding repertoire of hand gestures.

[00:28:54]They have their own sort of proto-language consisting of over 8,500 gestures. These have all been identified and recorded by primate researchers. Dr. Gal Badihi and their colleagues at the University of St. Andrews studied 252 wild chimps across five different communities in East Africa. The team found that the chimp gestures appear to follow the same strict rules of turn-taking that human conversation follows. It doesn't matter what language you speak or what culture you're from.

[00:29:27]>> [music] >> Humans have a very specific way of talking to one another. You say something, I say something, and rinse and repeat. Chimps follow the exact same structure using gestures that mean things like stop it or groom me.

[00:29:40]Chimps sometimes greet each other with a hug or a kiss. They use gestures after a fight with someone to avoid another confrontation. They ask to share food, indicate they want to go for a walk, and make demands during grooming sessions.

[00:29:54]They don't necessarily have language per se, but every gesture has a meaning. By using a lot of gestures in a row, they can sort of make complex sentences. As for when these gestures might turn into language as we know it, it's already on the way.

[00:30:11]>> [music] >> Scientists found that most of the interactions between chimps were brief, but a few of them lasted quite a while.

[00:30:19]In some instances, chimps traded up to seven gestures in a row, which might not be as impressive as talking to somebody about the Anunnaki until 4:00 in the morning, but what is impressive is that the apes typically took 120 milliseconds to respond to each other. Do you know how long it takes the average human to respond during a typical conversation?

[00:30:40]It takes 200 milliseconds. That means that even though the chimpanzees don't talk for as long, they respond faster.

[00:30:48]It almost makes you wonder if they have faster synapses in their brains. Wait a minute. Could this mean that chimps will one day evolve to be smarter than us? Or at the very least better conversationalists?

[00:31:00]How long do you think it will be before chimps start talking to each other? Let me know your thoughts in the comments and thanks so much for watching. Don't forget to subscribe and I'll see you soon for more amazing discoveries. Bye.