Killer chimpanzees and human warfare. This article from World Science Net popped into my inbox today.
It's basically a short news story on an upcoming research presentation by David Watts (Yale University) on the incidence of intergroup chimpanzee violence at Kibale. The article has Watts and Richard Wrangham (Harvard University) in support of the idea that chimpanzee violence is widespread and homologous with human violence, and Brian Ferguson (Rutgers University) speaking against the idea. The basic observation has been well understood: under certain circumstances, chimpanzee males will kill members of neighboring groups. This occurs most commonly when the victims are caught alone, and repeated instances have in at least one case basically wiped out the males in a targeted group (at Gombe). Really, the central question that most people think is interesting is whether the behavior of chimpanzees has any predictive value for the behavior of ancient humans. Chimpanzees team up to attack a monkey in the wild - BBC wildlife. Smooth Pebbles: Chimpanzee hunting tactics - an aerial view.
The good folks at Neuroanthropology drew my attention to a pair of videos showing how chimpanzees work together to corral, kill, and then eat colubus monkeys.
Amazing stuff. The embedded video below shows a hunt from the rather chaotic point of view of cameramen chasing the chase at jungle-floor level. Chimpanzee Raid - LiveVideo.