Video
Scientists from Oxford University have observed chimpanzees in Uganda tending to each others wounds with medicinal leaves.
The fascinating videos show a young chimp caring for a wound on his left knee with chewed stem bark and leaves, as well as a young female licking her fingers and applying them to her mother's wound after an attack.
Dr Elodie Freymann, a primate researcher at the University of Oxford studying two communities of chimps in the Budongo Forest, has described this behaviour as "very rare."
They observed several techniques of care, direct wound licking, which removes debris and potentially applies antimicrobial compounds in saliva, finger licking followed by wound pressing, leaf-dabbing, and chewing plant materials and applying them directly to wounds.
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