Chimpanzee Hunting Party (video)

When chimpanzees go hunting, the organization to their behavior may surprise you.  That people actually keep these animals as pets shows no respect whatsoever for how dangerous they are.

In this example, the chimps are going off warring with another group of chimps and the organized way they do it has no match except with humans.  Wolves show clever behavior in hunting but even they don't come close to chimps.


Rather than a war party, this example shows them hunting colobus monkeys and you can see their organizational skills again.

Lowland Gorillas seem the most terrifying and dangerous but they are passive vegetarians and probably don't approach chimpanzees for intelligence.  We have not gone off to validate that but predators are almost always the most intelligent species.


Behind all this is the view it's much better to watch animals than it is to kill them.  The fundamental difference between human hunting and any other animal is we want the best and healthiest animals for trophies, etc whereas animal hunting parties can only catch the weakest.  Their behavior is brutal but it's a positive selection effect for the survival of the prey species because it reinforces the survival characteristics of the ones which got away.  The human behavior is actively malicious since it kills the herd's best breeding stock.