Definitions:

Pant grunt – Noisy, low frequency grunt sounds panted in a rapid rhythm, given by subordinate individuals to dominant individuals when greeting a dominant or when an aggressive chimpanzee is approaching.

Community – Chimpanzees live in multi-male multi-female social groups. These social groups are called communities. Communities often neighbour each other. Females may emigrate from one community to another. Males do not. Neighbouring communities typically behave aggressively when they encounter one another.

Patrol – Every community has a territory – a geographical range that community members live in. When a group of community members travel along one of the borders of their territory, they are said to be patrolling. Sometimes community members will enter into the territory of another community.

Grooming – Affiliative behaviour involving picking through the fur of another individual which can be done with the fingers or sometimes the lips, often removing and killing parasites.

Infanticide – The killing of an infant chimpanzee by other group members, or members of other communities.

Strangers – Females emigrate from one community to another. When a female first arrives in a community, the is considered as a ‘stranger’ by the researchers. If the female is accepted within the group and remains there, she is then named.

Focal/focalling – Each day, researchers pick an individual group member that they will follow and collect data on that day. The individual they choose is called the ‘focal’ and following them them is called ‘focalling’.

Grunt – Soft, short, low frequency vocalisations, produced by adults and subadults during resting and the making of nests, sometimes heard between affiliative individuals as they initiate travel, foraging, rest, or when they hear an approaching chimpanzee.

Immigrants – Members of a community that previously belonged to another community.

Copulate – Sexual intercourse

Sub-adult – A chimpanzee between the ages of 10-14. Makes begin showing dominance displays and females have reached sexual maturity and have regular estrus cycles by this point.

Juvenile – A young chimpanzee, usually between the ages of 4-10. During this period chimpanzees become increasingly independent from their mothers and early in the juvenile period are weaned off of breast milk.

Infant – A young chimpanzee, usually between the ages of 0-4. During this period, chimpanzees drink their mothers breast milk, and typically travel on her back or while clinging to her stomach.

Adult – A fully mature chimpanzee, typically older than 14 years, and potentially up to 60 years or more. Males travel almost exclusively with the core group by this stage.

Solicit – An attempt to elicit copulation from another individual. Typically, males attempt to solicit females, which can be done through communicative gestures such as branch shaking.

Display – Typically shown by males to show dominance. Displays involve charging on the group, while showing behaviour such as slapping the ground, dragging sticks, throwing objects, and producing pant-hoot vocalisations.

Habituation – The process by which an animal becomes accustomed to the presence of humans.

Habituated – An animal that is accustomed to the presence of humans. An animal is habituated when they no longer show avoidance behaviour to humans.

Wabira – A habituated chimpanzee community in Budongo Forest. They are less habituated than Sonso.

Sonso – The most well habituated chimpanzee community in Budongo forest.

Hunting – Chimpanzees occasionally hunt other mammals such as monkeys and duikers. This is typically performed by a group, where members occupy different roles to strategically capture, kill, and consume the animal.

Estrus – Recurring period of sexual receptivity in females, marked by swollen genitals in female chimpanzees.

Core group member – The core group of a chimpanzee community is the most stable and consistent sub-group, usually mostly males, but including some females also.

Peripheral group member – Community members typically found in smaller sub-groups, usually not with the core group, mostly females, particularly those of lower rank.

Meat/food sharing – Chimpanzees often share their food with other group members. This can be active or passive. Active food sharing involves one chimpanzee giving food to another. Passive food sharing involves an individual in possession of food tolerating another group member taking some of their food.

Dry season – A period of low rainfall. This happens twice per year in Budongo, typically between October – January, and March - August

Wet Season – A period of high rainfall. This happens twice per year in Budongo, typically between January – March, and August – October.

Ranks – The position of an individual in the dominance hierarchy. Those higher up in the hierarchy are ‘high ranking’.

Inter-community encounter – When one community encounters another, typically involving aggressive behaviour.

Displacement – When one individual charges at another and takes their place, for example, on the branch of a feeding tree.

Buttress drum – Chimpanzees drum on the buttresses of trees during travel as well as a part of dominance displays.

Cycling – A female who is going in and out of estrus. When females become old, their estrus cycles decrease and eventually cease all together.

Zephyr – Previous primatologist working in the Sonso community

Events book – A book at Budongo Conservation Field Station wherein rare and unusual events are reported and described by primatologists.

Joining – Chimpanzees have a fission fusion social system, where the overall group is made up of a collection of smaller groups, and members move between these smaller groups. Joining refers to an individual joining a party of others. Often, joining individuals produce vocal and gestural greetings

Chimp list

• Nambi – Adult female of Sonso community, mother to Musa, considered mostly to be the alpha female

• Janie – Adult female of Sonso community, high ranking, possible current alpha female

• Hawa – Adult male, current alpha male of Sonso community, son of Harriet

• Musa – Adult male, second highest ranking male of Sonso, son of Nambi

• Andy – Adult male. Son of Nambi, older brother of Musa. Deceased.

• Frank – Adult male, third highest ranking male of Sonso community

• Ruhara – High ranking adult female of Sonso community

• Rose – Adult female of Sonso community. Current whereabouts unknown

• Harriet – Adult female of Sonso community, mother of Hawa, current alpha male

• Arcus – Low ranking adult female of Sonso community

• Kathy – Adult female of Sonso community

• Katia – Adult female of Sonso community

• Klaus – Low ranking sub-adult male of Sonso community, son of Kalema

• Kalema – Adult female of Sonso community

• Kewaya – Adult female of Sonso community

• Zalu – Mid-ranking adult male of Sonso community

• Zimba – Adult female of Sonso community, last seen severely injured after inter-community encounter with Western community.

• Irene – Adult female of Sonso community

• Duane – Previous alpha male of Sonso community. Deceased.

• Nora – Adult female of Wabira community, immigrated from Sonso community.

• Bahati – Adult female of Wabira community, immigrated from Sonso community.

• Fiddick - Adult male of Waibira community

• Daudi - Adult male of Waibira community

• Rita - Adult female of Waibira community

• Lotti - Adult female of Waibira community

• Ila - Adult male of Waibira community

• Arua - Adult male of Waibira community

• Ben - Alpha male of Waibira community

• Liran - Adult female of Waibira community

• Nedito-Eve (Neve) - Adult female of Waibira community

Cite as

Perspectives Collective. (2023). Establishing Female Chimpanzee Alphaship: A Cross-Community Case Study from Budongo Forest. Perspectives Collective Journal, 1(1). https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.8420102