Chimps use forest as pharmacy

Filming shows that sick chimpanzees in Uganda use plants as medicine. And they also use these plants to treat other chimpanzees.

A research team from the University of Oxford worked with a local team in the Budongo Forest. 51 animals were studied. The chimps put the plants on the injured parts of their body. And before doing this, they sometimes chewed the plants.

The main researcher, Oxford University's Dr Elodie Freyman, compared the scientists to detectives. That's because they had to find several different types of evidence in their study.

People have talked about chimpanzees using plants since the 1990s. However, the Oxford team wanted to learn if the animals chose some plants on purpose. They also chemically tested those plants which the animals used as medicine.

The tests showed that 88 percent of the plants stopped bacteria from growing. Some plants also helped to stop swelling. Dead wood from one tree was used by the chimps when they were injured. In fact, the same treatment's used by people in East Africa when ill.

Scientists like Dr Freyman think that we can learn from what chimps and other apes do when sick or injured. It might even help in the search for new medicines.