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| Common Name: | Chimpanzee | Family: | Primates |
| Latin Name: | Pan troglodytes | Diet: | Omnivore |
| Type: | Mammal | Habitat: | Tropical Rainforests |
| Native To: | Africa | Social Unit: | Group |
| IUCN Red List Status: | Endangered |
Chimpanzees at Edinburgh Zoo
Edinburgh Zoo currently has 19 chimps in our group. The first group to live at Budongo Trail includes Louis, David, Qafzeh, Kindia, Liberius, Cindy, Emma, Lucy, Lyndsey & Kilimi. The second group, which arrived at Edinburgh Zoo in March 2010, includes Rene, Paul, Frek, Pearl, Sophie, Lianne, Heleen, Eva and Edith.
Our chimpanzee living facility, Budongo Trail, has the capacity to hold a community of up to 40 chimps in the future. The captive breeding programme for chimps is now concentrating on the breeding of the sub species the Western chimpanzee (Pan troglodytes verus), and we hope to participate in this.
A wild chimp’s diet is extremely varied; they feed on over 250 different food types including fruits, leaves, flowers, bark, seeds and animal prey. Although at the zoo we can’t feed them exactly the same as their wild diet, we give them a huge variety of different fruits and vegetables, including more unexpected items such as onions, garlic and avocados!
Our chimps don’t seem to have a taste for meat, so we ensure they get their protein in the form of boiled eggs, whole nuts and pulses. The diet is designed to ensure that they get all the essential nutrients and vitamins and also fed in such a way to stimulate natural foraging behaviours.
Find out more about our amazing Budongo Trail exhibit and the chimpanzees who live there!
Watch the chimps in their enclosure on the new Budongo Trail Cam!
Where it can be found at Edinburgh Zoo
Budongo Trail
Chimpanzees in the wild
Chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes) are found in the rainforests of West and Central Africa in multimale-multifemale communities of up to and over 100 individuals. Within these communities the chimps will break off into smaller groups throughout the day to travel and feed. This is known as fission-fusion.
There is a dominance hierarchy within the community, with the group being led by an alpha male. Competition for this top spot can be fierce, engaging in often aggressive displays to intimidate others. However males in this position often rely on allies and coalitions with others so social grooming helps form these bonds.
Chimpanzees live in a complex society, with cultural traditions being passed down through generations e.g. hunting and medicinal plant use. They also use and modify a wide variety of objects in their environment for tools e.g. leaf sponges, twig probes and stones and branches used as hammer and anvils or as weapons. The keepers at the zoo therefore spend much of their day thinking up new and ingenious ways of enriching the chimps.
Chimps are classed as endangered, and are mainly threatened by habitat destruction, both by logging companies and conversion of forest to farmland. They are also hunted to supply the bushmeat trade, and also get caught in snares that are usually set to catch other animals. Hunters also kill individuals within a group in order to remove infants and sell them on to the illegal pet trade.
Breeding programme category: ESB
IUCN Red List Category: Endangered
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