Institute of Cognitive Science, Comparative BioCognition, University of Osnabrück, Artilleriestrasse 34, 49076, Osnabrück, Germany.
Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Interim Group Primatology, Deutscher Platz 6, 04103, Leipzig, Germany.
Sci Rep. 2021 Jul 19;11(1):14673. doi: 10.1038/s41598-021-93829-x.
Intraspecies violence, including lethal interactions, is a relatively common phenomenon in mammals. Contrarily, interspecies violence has mainly been investigated in the context of predation and received most research attention in carnivores. Here, we provide the first information of two lethal coalitionary attacks of chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes troglodytes) on another hominid species, western lowland gorillas (Gorilla gorilla gorilla), that occur sympatrically in the Loango National Park in Gabon. In both events, the chimpanzees significantly outnumbered the gorillas and victims were infant gorillas. We discuss these observations in light of the two most widely accepted theoretical explanations for interspecific lethal violence, predation and competition, and combinations of the two-intraguild predation and interspecific killing. Given these events meet conditions proposed to trigger coalitional killing of neighbours in chimpanzees, we also discuss them in light of chimpanzees' intraspecific interactions and territorial nature. Our findings may spur further research into the complexity of interspecies interactions. In addition, they may aid in combining field data from extant models with the Pliocene hominid fossil record to better understand behavioural adaptations and interspecific killing in the hominin lineage.
种内暴力，包括致命的相互作用，在哺乳动物中是一种相对常见的现象。相反，种间暴力主要在捕食的背景下进行研究，并且在肉食动物中受到了最多的关注。在这里，我们提供了在加蓬洛安哥国家公园中，两种黑猩猩（Pan troglodytes troglodytes）对另一种人科物种——西部低地大猩猩（Gorilla gorilla gorilla）的致命联合攻击的首例信息，这两种物种是同域分布的。在这两个事件中，黑猩猩的数量明显多于大猩猩，受害者是幼年大猩猩。我们根据两种最广泛接受的种间致命暴力的理论解释，即捕食和竞争，以及两者的组合——种内捕食和种间杀戮，讨论了这些观察结果。鉴于这些事件符合触发黑猩猩对邻居进行联合杀戮的条件，我们还根据黑猩猩的种内相互作用和领地性质讨论了这些事件。我们的发现可能会激发对种间相互作用复杂性的进一步研究。此外，它们可能有助于将现存模型的野外数据与上新世古人类化石记录相结合，以更好地理解人属谱系中的行为适应和种间杀戮。
