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An eagle in the Issa Valley of western Tanzania was just about to pucker into a hard - earned repast when an alpha male chimpanzee burst onto the tantrum and stole its prey — a uncommon encounter that has been document by scientists in a new written report .
Chimpanzees(Pan troglodytes ) are mostly vegetarian , but their diets include some meat and other animate being product . They actively hunt for their nitty-gritty and , on rare occasion , scavenge from dead carcasses .
Imba the chimpanzee (Pan troglodytes) feeding on a bushbuck carcass likely caught by an eagle.
The new study , issue Oct. 31 in the journalPrimates , highlights chimp ' power to confront other predators and take their food in a behaviour call confrontational scavenging .
Lead authorSam Baker , enquiry coordinator of the Bugoma Primate Conservation Project in Uganda , was come after the chimps with Kidosi Raulent Mfaume , a local domain assistant , when they saw Imba , an alpha male chimpanzee , run into a fleck of prospicient locoweed . A crowned eagle ( Stephanoaetus coronatus ) then immediately took flight . Moments later , Imba seem with a motionless young Tragelaphus scriptus ( Tragelaphus scriptus ) that the study authors take over the eagle had just caught .
" Like most novel , particularly rare experiences , it was surreal and tickle pink in the moment , " Baker tell Live Science in a content on social media . " These face-off are uncommon in the lit , most of which are inferred , so an almost complete observation of events is unique . "
Sam Baker (front) with Simon Sungura (middle) and Kidosi Raulent Mfaume (back).
Other chimps seek to slip the carcass and begged Imba to share for around an hour . He give some to a female chimpanzee and take in most of the bushbuck himself . After discarding the carcass , other chimpanzee then went and helped themselves to the remains . finally , only the skull was leave .
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The showdown is only the second documented example of a chimpanzee steal food from a raptorial bird . Most invoice of confrontational scavenging involve chimps taking prey from baboon . A 2019 study published in theJournal of Human Evolutionfound that chimps also slip from leopard ( Panthera pardus ) , even though leopards naturally predate on chimps .
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Because chimps are one of our confining aliveness relatives , they offer us a window into the lives of ourlast common ascendant , which live around 6 to 8 million years ago , and the organic evolution of human behavior , Baker said .
Scavenging could have led to more and more complex social behavior in early human " like evolutionary stepping stone , passive to confrontational scavenging , to cooperative hunt , " he said .
Mfaume , the orbit assistant who also witness the events , but who was not named in the study , cash in one’s chips due to ill wellness in 2022 at the years of 29 .
Baker say he wished to dedicate the cogitation to Mfaume ’s retention . " He was a beautiful , unerasable soul passionate about the woodland and the chimpanzees there , " Baker added .
