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The Bili apes, or Bondo mystery apes, were names given in 2003 in sensational reports in the popular media to a purportedly new species of highly aggressive, giant
ape Apes (collectively Hominoidea ) are a superfamily of Old World simians native to sub-Saharan Africa and Southeast Asia (though they were more widespread in Africa, most of Asia, and Europe in prehistory, and counting humans are found global ...
supposedly inhabiting the wetlands and savannah around of the village of Bili in the
Democratic Republic of the Congo The Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), also known as the DR Congo, Congo-Kinshasa, or simply the Congo (the last ambiguously also referring to the neighbouring Republic of the Congo), is a country in Central Africa. By land area, it is t ...
. "The
ape Apes (collectively Hominoidea ) are a superfamily of Old World simians native to sub-Saharan Africa and Southeast Asia (though they were more widespread in Africa, most of Asia, and Europe in prehistory, and counting humans are found global ...
s nest on the ground like
gorilla Gorillas are primarily herbivorous, terrestrial great apes that inhabit the tropical forests of equatorial Africa. The genus ''Gorilla'' is divided into two species: the eastern gorilla and the western gorilla, and either four or five su ...
s, but they have a diet and features characteristic of chimpanzees", according to a 2003 ''
National Geographic ''National Geographic'' (formerly ''The National Geographic Magazine'', sometimes branded as ''Nat Geo'') is an American monthly magazine published by National Geographic Partners. The magazine was founded in 1888 as a scholarly journal, nine ...
'' article. Scientists soon determined they were
common chimpanzee The chimpanzee (; ''Pan troglodytes''), also simply known as the chimp, is a species of great ape native to the forests and savannahs of tropical Africa. It has four confirmed subspecies and a fifth proposed one. When its close relative the ...
s, and part of a larger contiguous population stretching throughout that part of northern Congo.
Genetic testing Genetic testing, also known as DNA testing, is used to identify changes in DNA sequence or chromosome structure. Genetic testing can also include measuring the results of genetic changes, such as RNA analysis as an output of gene expression, or ...
with non-nuclear DNA in 2003 immediately indicated that it was in fact part of the already described
eastern chimpanzee The eastern chimpanzee (''Pan troglodytes schweinfurthii'') is a subspecies of the common chimpanzee. It is native to the Central African Republic, South Sudan, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi, and Tanzania. Taxono ...
(''Pan troglodytes schweinfurthii''), a
subspecies In Taxonomy (biology), biological classification, subspecies (: subspecies) is a rank below species, used for populations that live in different areas and vary in size, shape, or other physical characteristics (Morphology (biology), morpholog ...
of the common chimpanzee.


History

Skulls of gorillas were first collected near the town of Bili in 1908. These were sent to the colonial power of
Belgium Belgium, officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a country in Northwestern Europe. Situated in a coastal lowland region known as the Low Countries, it is bordered by the Netherlands to the north, Germany to the east, Luxembourg to the southeas ...
; in 1927, a new
subspecies In Taxonomy (biology), biological classification, subspecies (: subspecies) is a rank below species, used for populations that live in different areas and vary in size, shape, or other physical characteristics (Morphology (biology), morpholog ...
of gorilla, ''Gorilla gorilla uellensis'', was described based upon these specimens.
Colin Groves Colin Peter Groves (24 June 1942 – 30 November 2017) was a British-Australian biologist and anthropologist. Groves was professor of biological anthropology at the Australian National University in Canberra, Australia. Education Born in Englan ...
examined the skulls in 1970 and determined that they were indistinguishable from
western gorilla The western gorilla (''Gorilla gorilla'') is a great ape found in Africa, one of two species of the hominid genus ''Gorilla''. Large and robust with males weighing around , the species is found in a region of midwest Africa, geographically iso ...
s.
Karl Ammann Karl Ammann is a Swiss conservationist, wildlife photographer, author and documentary film producer. He initiated a campaign focusing on the African bush meat trade, which gained worldwide attention. As a conservation activist, he has specialized ...
, a Swiss Kenyan photographer and anti-
bushmeat Bushmeat is meat from wildlife species that are Hunting, hunted for human consumption. Bushmeat represents a primary source of animal protein and a cash-earning commodity in poor and rural communities of humid tropical forest regions of the worl ...
campaigner, first visited the city in 1996, looking for the gorillas. Instead, Ammann bought a skull that had dimensions like that of a chimpanzee, but with a prominent
sagittal crest A sagittal crest is a ridge of bone running lengthwise along the midline of the top of the skull (at the sagittal suture) of many mammalian and reptilian skulls, among others. The presence of this ridge of bone indicates that there are excepti ...
like that of a gorilla. Ammann purchased a photograph from hunters of what looked like a very big chimpanzee. Ammann also measured a faecal dropping three times as big as normal chimpanzee dung and casts of footprints as large as or larger than a gorilla's. Ammann, with a group of foreign researchers, returned in 2000 to an area described by a
Cameroon Cameroon, officially the Republic of Cameroon, is a country in Central Africa. It shares boundaries with Nigeria to the west and north, Chad to the northeast, the Central African Republic to the east, and Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, and the R ...
ian bushmeat hunter he had sent to scout the area first a few years earlier. Although they did not see any chimpanzees, they did find several well-worn ground nests, characteristic of gorillas rather than chimpanzees, in swampy river beds. In 2001, an international team of scientists, including
George Schaller George Beals Schaller (born 26 May 1933) is an American mammalogist, biologist, conservationist and author. Schaller is recognized by many as the world's preeminent field biologist, studying wildlife throughout Africa, Asia and South America. ...
and Mike Belliveau, were recruited by Karl Ammann to search for apes, but the venture came up empty. After the
Second Congo War The Second Congo War, also known as Africa's World War or the Great War of Africa, was a major conflict that began on 2 August 1998, in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, just over a year after the First Congo War. The war initially erupted ...
ended in 2003, it was easier for scientists to conduct field research in the Congo. Also recruited by Ammann was Shelly Williams, an
experimental psychologist Experimental psychology is the work done by those who apply Experiment, experimental methods to psychological study and the underlying processes. Experimental psychologists employ Research participant, human participants and Animal testing, anim ...
affiliated with ''National Geographic'' magazine, who claimed to be the first scientist to see the 'Bili apes'. Williams returned to the US with videos, apparently purchased from one of Ammann's long-term trackers. Williams reported on her close encounter, "we could hear them in the trees, about away, and four suddenly came rushing through the brush towards me. If this had been a mock charge they would have been screaming to intimidate us. These guys were quiet, and they were huge. They were coming in for the kill – but as soon as they saw my face they stopped and disappeared". According to Williams, who claims she learnt
Lingala Lingala (or Ngala, Lingala: ) is a Bantu languages, Bantu language spoken in the northwest of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the northern half of the Republic of the Congo, in their capitals, Kinshasa and Brazzaville, and to a lesser de ...
, the local populace classified
great ape The Hominidae (), whose members are known as the great apes or hominids (), are a taxonomic family of primates that includes eight extant species in four genera: '' Pongo'' (the Bornean, Sumatran and Tapanuli orangutan); '' Gorilla'' (the ...
s into two distinct groups. There are the "tree beaters", which disperse high into the trees to stay safe, and easily succumb to the poison arrows used by local hunters. Then there are the "lion killers", which seldom climb trees, are bigger and darker, and are unaffected by the poison arrows. Other reports attribute this statement to Ammann. Williams claimed to have observed three species of chimpanzees, including this new one, during her summer tour. "The unique characteristics they exhibit just don't fit into the other groups of apes", said Williams. The apes, she argued, could be a new species unknown to science, a new subspecies of chimpanzee, or a hybrid of the gorilla and the chimpanzee. "At the very least, we have a unique, isolated chimp culture that's unlike any that's been studied", she said. These and other sensational pronouncements to the media proved controversial, and Williams was subsequently no longer welcome to study the animals with Ammann. Ammann had published a letter in 2003 decrying Williams' unprofessional involvement. Williams vowed to continue without him, making plans for another expedition. Cleve Hicks, a primatologist recruited by Ammann in 2004, stated "genetically, they're not even a subspecies".
Mitochondrial DNA Mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA and mDNA) is the DNA located in the mitochondrion, mitochondria organelles in a eukaryotic cell that converts chemical energy from food into adenosine triphosphate (ATP). Mitochondrial DNA is a small portion of the D ...
resolved from hairs taken from the nests found in 2003 that the chimpanzees belonged to ''Pan troglodytes schweinfurthii''. Williams countered that all these hairs may have been contaminated by real chimpanzees or humans, or that the conventional use of mDNA regions discovered in human research as genetic markers was incorrect in primatology, or that the mDNA, which is only transmitted by mothers, would not reflect one-way hybridisation with male gorillas. In 2004, Hicks studied several communities of the chimpanzees approximately northwest of the town of Bili. Although the apes, including adult males, would surround the humans and display an interest or curiosity in them, somewhat like previous reports, they did not attack or become threatening. In 2005, Williams was paralysed in an accident, and her claims to the media ceased. She never mounted her planned expedition. By 2006, Hicks and colleagues had completed another long hunt for the chimpanzees during which they were able to observe the creatures a total of twenty hours. Hicks reported, "I see nothing gorilla about them. The females definitely have a chimp's sex swellings, they pant-hoot and tree-drum, and so on". DNA samples recovered from
faeces Feces (also known as faeces American and British English spelling differences#ae and oe, or fæces; : faex) are the solid or semi-solid remains of food that was not digested in the small intestine, and has been broken down by bacteria in the ...
also reaffirmed the
classification Classification is the activity of assigning objects to some pre-existing classes or categories. This is distinct from the task of establishing the classes themselves (for example through cluster analysis). Examples include diagnostic tests, identif ...
of these apes in the chimpanzee subspecies ''P. t. schweinfurthii''. When a report on Hicks' research on the ''New Scientist'' website was later confused with claims originating from Williams, Hicks wrote to claim the article misreported and misquoted him. In 2019, Hicks and others published a comprehensive paper on the chimpanzees of the wider 'Bili-Uéré region', as they termed the central part of the Uélé watershed. The old giant ape controversy was ignored entirely. Twenty chimpanzee groups were studied over twelve years. In the work, Hicks ''et al''. classifies the chimpanzees of this area as a behavioural "realm", subdivided into many "regions", united by common preferences and techniques, defined by tool use, dietary preferences and such habits. Chimpanzees of Bili-Uéré, for example, do not eat termites of the ''
Macrotermes ''Macrotermes'' is a genus of termites belonging to the subfamily Macrotermitinae and widely distributed throughout Africa and South-East Asia. Well-studied species include ''Macrotermes natalensis'' and '' M. bellicosus.'' Like other genera in ...
'' genus, which are otherwise much loved by the apes, unless the termites are having a mating swarm. Despite early reports of super-long rods used to fish termites, Hicks ''et al''. document that these chimpanzees do ''not'' use rods to fish for termites at all, but instead bash the mounds open against roots.


Description

Williams initially claimed the apes were bipedal (meaning they walk upright) and stood tall, with the looks of a giant chimpanzee; making them look more like the extinct
Australopithecine The australopithecines (), formally Australopithecina or Hominina, are generally any species in the related genera of ''Australopithecus'' and ''Paranthropus''. It may also include members of '' Kenyanthropus'', ''Ardipithecus'', and '' Praeant ...
or ''
Sahelanthropus ''Sahelanthropus'' is an extinct genus of hominid dated to about during the Late Miocene. The type species, ''Sahelanthropus tchadensis'', was first announced in 2002, based mainly on a partial cranium, nicknamed ''Toumaï'', discovered in north ...
''. According to Williams, "They have a very flat face, a wide muzzle and their brow-ridge runs straight across and overhangs. They seem to turn grey very early in life, but instead of turning grey-black like a gorilla, they turn grey all over." They develop uniform grey fur independently of age and sex, which suggests that greying takes place early in life (whereas in all known gorilla species, only males gray as they age and graying is restricted to their backs). A single skull from Bili has the prominent brow ridge and a
sagittal crest A sagittal crest is a ridge of bone running lengthwise along the midline of the top of the skull (at the sagittal suture) of many mammalian and reptilian skulls, among others. The presence of this ridge of bone indicates that there are excepti ...
similar to that of a gorilla, but other morphological measurements are like those of chimpanzees. Only one of the many skulls found at Bili had a sagittal crest, thus it cannot be considered typical for the population. Female Bili apes have genital swellings similar to other chimpanzees, although Williams claimed otherwise.


Behavior

According to Williams, the apes howled at the Moon. Hicks and Ammann disputed that. According to Hicks, in some ways, the apes behave more like gorillas than chimpanzees. For example, they build ground nests as gorillas do, using interwoven branches and/or saplings, bent down into a central bowl. However, they frequently nest in the trees as well. Often ground nests will be found beneath or in proximity to tree nests. Their diet is decidedly chimpanzee-like, consisting mainly of fruits (fruiting trees such as strangler figs are visited often). Hicks observed one group far from the roads and villages in 2004, saying that when they encountered it, the chimps not only approached the humans, but also would actually surround them with intent curiosity. Hicks found the behavior toward humans intriguing. They would come face-to-face, stare intently, then slide away quietly. There was little to no aggression, yet no fear, either. "Gorilla males will always charge when they encounter a hunter, but there were no stories like that" about the chimpanzees, according to Ammann. Hicks clarifies Williams' claims as follows: the apes within roughly of the roads flee humans almost without exception. The adult males show the greatest fear. Further from the roads, however, the chimpanzees become progressively "naive". Even though these apes avoid the camera, they seem to have a curious nature. It has been observed that, when these chimps find humans around, they don’t just approach humans, but circle them out of pure curiosity. The chimpanzees would stand face to face and exchange longing glances.


Distribution

Bili is a city, and a river tributary, which lies in the
Democratic Republic of the Congo The Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), also known as the DR Congo, Congo-Kinshasa, or simply the Congo (the last ambiguously also referring to the neighbouring Republic of the Congo), is a country in Central Africa. By land area, it is t ...
's far north, about east of the
Ebola River The Ebola River ( or ), also commonly known by its Ngbandi name Legbala, is the headstream of the Mongala River, a tributary of the Congo River, in northern Democratic Republic of the Congo. It is roughly in length. The name ''Ebola'' is a Fre ...
. It lies to the north of the
Uélé River The Uele, also known by the phonetically identical Uélé, Ouélé, or Welle River, is a river in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Course The Uele forms at Dungu, at the confluence of the Dungu and Kibali rivers, which both originate ...
, to the south of this river lie deep tropical
rainforest Rainforests are forests characterized by a closed and continuous tree Canopy (biology), canopy, moisture-dependent vegetation, the presence of epiphytes and lianas and the absence of wildfire. Rainforests can be generally classified as tropi ...
s, whereas around Bili lie wetlands and the forests are broken by patches of
savanna A savanna or savannah is a mixed woodland-grassland (i.e. grassy woodland) biome and ecosystem characterised by the trees being sufficiently widely spaced so that the canopy does not close. The open canopy allows sufficient light to reach th ...
.
Civil war A civil war is a war between organized groups within the same Sovereign state, state (or country). The aim of one side may be to take control of the country or a region, to achieve independence for a region, or to change government policies.J ...
and neglect had left the region relatively undeveloped and wild, with people still using home-made guns of ancient design in 2005. Chimpanzees were also tracked by Ammann in the region near the city of Bondo, to the west, in 2004. In 2006, Hicks moved the study to the much denser forests around Gangu, and from the road to Bili. By 2007 they had grown frightened of the new arrivals to the city of Bili as gold was found in the region, and moved south of the Uélé. In 2007, Hicks was based in the city of Aketi, a few hundred kilometres southwest of Bondo. As of 2014, a large contiguous population of chimpanzees is now known to occur in the lands along both sides of the Uélé throughout
Bas-Uélé District Bas-Uele District (, ) was a district of the Belgian Congo and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. It was formed from part of Uele District in 1912 and was later merged into Uele District, then split out again. There were various boundary change ...
, in a range of habitats. They can be found throughout the region, in the savannahs around Bili and the dense rainforests a few hundred kilometres south. They are adapted to humans and occur within of Bili, as well as other neighbouring towns such as Lebo and Zapay, and within of large cities such as Buta.


Conservation

Primates throughout the Congo are hunted for
bushmeat Bushmeat is meat from wildlife species that are Hunting, hunted for human consumption. Bushmeat represents a primary source of animal protein and a cash-earning commodity in poor and rural communities of humid tropical forest regions of the worl ...
, although less to the north of the Uélé. Beginning in 2007 the Bili area saw an influx of
gold miner Gold mining is the extraction of gold by mining. Historically, mining gold from Alluvium, alluvial deposits used manual separation processes, such as gold panning. The expansion of gold mining to ores that are not on the surface has led to mor ...
s, prompting concern by Westerners about the animals in the area. Over a 14-month period between September 2007 and November 2008, Hicks and his associates documented 34 chimpanzee young and 31 carcasses for sale in the cities of Buta, Aketi and Bambesa.


See also

*
Mangani ''Mangani'' is the name of a fictional species of great apes in the Tarzan novels of Edgar Rice Burroughs, and of the invented language used by these apes. In the invented language, ''Mangani'' (meaning "great-ape") is the apes' word for their ow ...
(fictional "great apes" of the
Tarzan Tarzan (John Clayton, Viscount Greystoke) is a fictional character, a feral child raised in the African jungle by the Mangani great apes; he later experiences civilization, only to reject it and return to the wild as a heroic adventurer. Creat ...
series) *
Sympatric speciation Sympatric speciation is the evolution of a new species from a surviving Common descent, ancestral species while both continue to inhabit the same geographic region. In evolutionary biology and biogeography, ''sympatric'' and ''sympatry'' are ter ...


References


External links


"The giant lion-eating chimps of the magic forest"
on the UK ''Guardian'' website. * Chadwick, Alex

''Radio Expeditions'' (a co-production of NPR and the National Geographic Society). * Cleve Hicks's webpage at Max Planck institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Leipzig



Stray bullet paralyzes experimental psychologist. {{Portal bar, Biology, Evolutionary biology, Science Chimpanzees Hominid cryptids