DEVELOPING Person on fire outside Trump's hush money trial rushed away on a stretcher
A person who was on fire in a park outside the New York courthouse where Donald Trump’s hush money trial is taking place has been rushed away on a stretcher.
Chimpanzees' lethal attacks on gorillas in the wild have been observed for the first time, a team of researchers has said.
Experts observing dozens of chimps at Loango National Park in Gabon had expected them to be relaxed around gorillas.
But while the two species were usually playful, the researchers were surprised to witness occasional vicious attacks.
"At first, we only noticed screams of chimpanzees and thought we were observing a typical encounter between individuals of neighboring chimpanzee communities," said Lara M. Southern, the study's lead author, in a press release.
"But then, we heard chest beats, a display characteristic for gorillas, and realized that the chimpanzees had encountered a group of five gorillas," she added, referencing the first attack the team saw, in 2019.
The group, from Osnabrück University and the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Germany, published the findings on Monday in the journal Nature.
The two encounters they recorded, which lasted 52 and 79 minutes, saw the chimpanzees form coalitions and launch attacks on the gorillas.
The silverback and adult females gorillas defended themselves and their offspring. Both silverbacks and several adult females escaped, but two gorilla infants were separated from their mothers and killed, the authors wrote.
"Our observations provide the first evidence that the presence of chimpanzees can have a lethal impact on gorillas. We now want to investigate the factors triggering these surprisingly aggressive interactions," said Tobias Deschner, a primatologist at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology.
The attacks were particularly surprising given the way the two groups of animals had behaved beforehand. "Interactions between chimpanzees and gorillas have so far been considered as relatively relaxed," said Simone Pika, a cognitive biologist at Osnabrück University.
"We have regularly observed both species interacting peacefully in foraging trees. Our colleagues from Congo even witnessed playful interactions between the two great ape species," Pika said.
Around 45 chimps were being observed for the study, which intended to analyze their relationships, use of tools, communication and hunting skills, among other characteristics.
The authors suggested that pooling food with other species could have caused the flare-ups. "It could be that sharing of food resources by chimpanzees, gorillas and forest elephants in the Loango National Park result in increased competition and sometimes even in lethal interactions between the two great ape species," Deschner said.
Loango National Park is a sprawling protected area on Gabon's coast in western sub-Saharan Africa. It is home to elephants, buffalo and a number of other species.
The region is home to the western lowland gorilla, which is a critically endangered species.
Chimpanzees are an endangered species, according to the International Union for Conservation of Nature.
A person who was on fire in a park outside the New York courthouse where Donald Trump’s hush money trial is taking place has been rushed away on a stretcher.
Soulful gospel artist Mandisa, a Grammy-winning singer who got her start as a contestant on 'American Idol' in 2006, has died, according to a statement on her verified social media. She was 47.
Scottish comedian Samantha Hannah was working on a comedy show about finding a husband when Toby Hunter came into her life. What happened next surprised them both.
A Manitoba woman thought she found a miracle natural supplement, but said a hidden ingredient wreaked havoc on her health.
One day after a Montreal police officer fired gunshots at a suspect in a stolen vehicle, senior officers were telling parliamentarians that organized crime groups are recruiting people as young as 15 in the city to steal cars so that they can be shipped overseas.
Police in Sault Ste. Marie charged a 22-year-old man with animal cruelty following an attack on a dog Thursday morning.
The Senate legal affairs committee has rejected a motion calling for members to take a $50,000 field trip to the African Lion Safari in southern Ontario to see the zoo's elephant exhibit.
Ontario Provincial Police have landed a suspect following a fishy theft in Beachburg, Ont.
Group of Seven foreign ministers warned of new sanctions against Iran on Friday for its drone and missile attack on Israel, and urged both sides to avoid an escalation of the conflict.
At 6'8" and 350 pounds, there is nothing typical about UBC offensive lineman Giovanni Manu, who was born in Tonga and went to high school in Pitt Meadows.
Kevin the cat has been reunited with his family after enduring a harrowing three-day ordeal while lost at Toronto Pearson International Airport earlier this week.
Molly Knight, a grade four student in Nova Scotia, noticed her school library did not have many books on female athletes, so she started her own book drive in hopes of changing that.
Almost 7,000 bars of pure gold were stolen from Pearson International Airport exactly one year ago during an elaborate heist, but so far only a tiny fraction of that stolen loot has been found.
When Les Robertson was walking home from the gym in North Vancouver's Lower Lonsdale neighbourhood three weeks ago, he did a double take. Standing near a burrow it had dug in a vacant lot near East 1st Street and St. Georges Avenue was a yellow-bellied marmot.
A moulting seal who was relocated after drawing daily crowds of onlookers in Greater Victoria has made a surprise return, after what officials described as an 'astonishing' six-day journey.
Just steps from Parliament Hill is a barber shop that for the last 100 years has catered to everyone from prime ministers to tourists.
A high score on a Foo Fighters pinball machine has Edmonton player Dave Formenti on a high.
A compound used to treat sour gas that's been linked to fertility issues in cattle has been found throughout groundwater in the Prairies, according to a new study.