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Chimps treat each other with plant medicine. What does that show about empathy in primates?

WBUR | By Here & Now Newsroom
Published July 7, 2025 at 8:54 AM PDT

Click here for the original audio.

A study from Uganda’s Budongo Forest draws on decades of data suggesting chimpanzees understand the specific medicinal properties of certain plants and will go out of their way to treat the maladies of their peers.

Here & Now‘s Asma Khalid spoke with primatologist Elodie Freymann in May about these health care-related behaviors, whether they are instinctive or learned, and the implications for our closest evolutionary relatives.

This article was originally published on WBUR.org.

Copyright 2025 WBUR

Here & Now Newsroom