All were producing waa barks at HW as he climbed a tree, infant in hand, and started "biting the fingers, legs and the right ear of the infant." At this point, UP was chased from the party by one of the adult males.Ī few minutes later, an adult female took the infant from HW and began biting its limbs and head while other chimps sniffed the body. Six adult chimps and three younger chimps of various ages followed HW, and the researchers also spotted UP in the throng. The infant's left arm was missing, and the wound appeared fresh. Soon, a male known as "HW" emerged from the vegetation, clutching the albino infant to his chest. Sounds of physical aggression and the screams of an infant drifted from the thicket, but the team could not see the individual chimps involved in the encounter. In the early morning, field assistant Bosco Chandia of the Budongo Conservation Field Station and researcher Maël Leroux, who holds positions with the field station and University of Zürich, came upon a large group of chimps erupting in a chorus of hoos, waa barks and screams. Just days later, on July 19, the young chimp met his end. Related: The 12 weirdest animal discoveries On one occasion, an adult male let out a "tantrum scream on encountering (likely unexpectedly) UP and the baby at a close distance." Researchers spotted her and the infant a few more times that morning. At some point, UP rushed up a tree, with the infant clinging to her chest, and stayed there for some time before climbing down and ducking from sight inside a dense thicket.
But a few adult chimps remained quiet and simply watched UP and the infant attentively one calm individual even approached and reached out to UP with its hand. Over the next few minutes, several more adult chimps entered the area and joined in the ruckus. Another male chimp heard these hoos and barks, as well as UP screaming, and rushed into the area he struck UP before clambering up a tree and starting to produce alarm hoos and waa barks, as well. Later on July 15, a pair of adult chimps encountered UP and the albino infant and began producing "alarm hoos and waa barks," sounds that chimps often make when facing potentially dangerous animals, like snakes and bush pigs, the authors wrote. Judging by the infant's size and the last recorded sighting of UP, the team estimated that the albino newborn was about 2- to 2-and-a-half weeks old. Now, the new study provides a unique glimpse into the brief life of an albino ape in the wild.Ī 19-year-old female chimp, which the researchers referred to as "UP," was known to be pregnant in January 2018, and on July 15 of that same year, she was seen carrying a "white" infant, later confirmed to be a male. Because Pinkie was collected from the wild at just a few weeks old, scientists didn't have the opportunity to observe her interactions with wild chimps. The only albino chimp ever reported was a western chimpanzee ( Pan troglodytes verus) named Pinkie, who was found as an infant and sheltered in the Tacugama Chimpanzee Sanctuary in Sierra Leone until her unexpected death at age 9. These included a few toque macaques ( Macaca sinica), bonnet macaques ( Macaca radiata) and spider monkeys ( Ateles geoffroyi), and among the great apes, an albino western lowland gorilla ( Gorilla gorilla gorilla) was once captured in the wild as an infant and then kept in captivity until its death in adulthood. The scientists described the grisly encounter in a recent study, published July 16 in the American Journal of Primatology, and noted that only a handful of nonhuman primates with albinism have been spotted in the wild in the past.
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