Christophe Boesch Do Wild Chimpanzee Populations Develop Diverse Cultures?
Christophe Boesch is Director of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig as well as Honorary Professor at the Department of Zoology at the University of Leipzig, Germany. His research revolves around the cultures of primates, especially chimpanzees. Among other things he seeks to understand their social interactions, cognitive capacities, tool-use and hunting behavior. Boesch is also the founder and president of the Wild Chimpanzee Foundation which aims at saving and preserving the remaining wild chimpanzees and their habitat. In 2015, Boesch and his foundation received the St. Andrew Prize for Environment for these efforts.
Area of Research
Primatology
since 1997
since 2000
Founder and President
Wild Chimpanzee Foundation
since 1999
Honorary Professor
Leipzig University (Universität Leipzig)
Department of Zoology
1991-1997
Assistant Professor
University of Basel (Universität Basel)
Department of Population Biology
1984-1990
Postdoctoral Research Associate
University of Zurich (Universität Zürich)
Department of Ethology
1994
Habilitation
University of Basel (Universität Basel)
1979-1984
PhD
University of Zurich (Universität Zürich)
Department of Ethology and Wildlife Research
1970-1975
Diplôme de Biologiste
University of Geneva
Faculty of Biology
Behavioral and Brain Sciences
International Journal of Primatology
Pan Africa News
Committee for the Care and Conservation of Chimpanzees
Fyssen Foundation
International Primate Protection League
International Primatological Society
IUCN/SSC Primate Specialist Group
Society for the Study of Animal Behaviour
Steering Committee of the World Heritage Species Status Taskforce
World Wide Fund for Nature International
Prizes
St. Andrews Prize for the Environment (2015)
Medal "Officier de l'Ordre National" by the President of Côte D’Ivoire Alassane Ouattara (2013)
Phillip Morris Research Price, München (1999)
Prix Cortaillod for Talented Swiss Scientists under 35 Years old, University of Neuchâtel (1985)
Fellowships
Great Apes Fellowship of the Leakey Foundation, Pasadena (1987, 1989)
© Maximilian Dörrbecker
Max Planck Society
"The Max Planck Society is Germany's most successful research organization. Since its establishment in 1948, no fewer than 18 Nobel laureates have emerged from the ranks of its scientists, putting it on a par with the best and most prestigious research institutions worldwide. The more than 15,000 publications each year in internationally renowned scientific journals are proof of the outstanding research work conducted at Max Planck Institutes – and many of those articles are among the most-cited publications in the relevant field." (Source)
Institute
Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology
"The Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology unites scientists with various backgrounds (natural sciences and humanities) whose aim is to investigate the history of humankind from an interdisciplinary perspective with the help of comparative analyses of genes, cultures, cognitive abilities, languages and social systems of past and present human populations as well as those of primates closely related to human beings". (Source)
Map
Humans pride themselves on having extensive and diverse cultures. However, cultures can also be observed in animals. The research presented in this video aims at understanding the cultures of wild chimpanzee populations in several African countries and how they differ from each other. As chimpanzees avoid human contact, CHRISTOPHE BOESCH explains, the research team conducted the study by setting up camera traps to catch chimpanzee behavior on video. Forty locations were carefully selected to make sure interesting behavioral patterns would be observable. The vast amount of video material reveals how the diversity of chimpanzee culture is still underestimated: the chimpanzee groups exhibit a surprising variety of behavior, for example in food hunting or display, which is partly shaped by their environment. Sadly, this study also indicates to what extent the habitat of chimpanzees has already been irretrievably destroyed.
LT Video Publication DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.21036/LTPUB10348
Chimpanzee Accumulative Stone Throwing
- Hjalmar S. Kühn, Ammie K. Kalan, Mimi Arandjelovic, Floris Aubert, Lucy D'Auvergne, Annemarie Goedmackers, Christophe Boesch and et al.
- Scientific Reports
- Published in 2016
