By Lazaro George, Guide - Greystoke Mahale
Chimpanzees are diurnal social creatures who live in a community made up of different families and few immigrants’ females from neighbor’s community. The chimpanzees get up early in the morning; they actively wander in the forest to look for food. In seasons where foods are in abundance they tender to siesta at around 11 am to 3 pm at which time they start looking for more food before the darkness creep in.
During siesta time adult chimpanzees spendtime grooming each other, which can be interrupted by occasional charging displays from adult males. Both juveniles and infants spend they siesta time playing with peer mate and learning who to make nests, an art which is very important for infants when they are about five years of age at which time they would be making their own night’s spend nest.
Depending on the season; chimpanzees can be seen struggling to get out of their feet jiggers, derma-parasites which get into one’s body in form of a flea. Were after has suckled the host blood grown into whitish rounded insect burring to ones flesh at half an inch from the victim’s skin surface. This sort of derma parasites chimpanzees took out by themselves using their teeth or toes.
Siesta moment is a wonderful time to watch and appreciate how these human closest living relatives interact among themselves in human like manners.
