Lethal conflict after group fission in wild chimpanzees

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Sandel, Aaron A.; He, Yixuan; Ren, Junpeng; Kei, Yik Lun; Lee, Kevin C.; Clark, Isabelle R.; Reddy, Rachna B.; Negrey, Jacob D.; Birungi, Charles; Apamaku, Blessing A.; Kanweri, Diana; Kalunga, Davis; Aliganyira, Christopher; Ramirez-Amaya, Sebastian; Nakayima, Phionah; Katumba, Raymond; Kamugyisha, Brian; Acosta-Florez, Daniela; van Boekholt, Bas; Mbabazi, Godfrey; Akamumpa, Erone; Namaganda, Sharifah; Tumusiime, Alfred; Angedakin, Samuel; Reinert, Gesine; Madrid-Padilla, Oscar; Cucuringu, Mihai; Wipf, David; Langergraber, Kevin E.; Watts, David P.; Mitani, John C.
• 署名单位: University of Texas System; University of Texas Austin; Arizona State University; Arizona State University-Downtown Phoenix; University of California System; University of California Los Angeles; Arizona State University; Arizona State University-Tempe; Arizona State University; Arizona State University-Tempe; Utah System of Higher Education; University of Utah; University of Arizona; Yale University; University Osnabruck; Makerere University; University of Oxford; University of California System; University of California Los Angeles
• 刊物名称: SCIENCE
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0036-8075; 1095-9203
• DOI: 10.1126/science.adz4944
• 发表日期: 2026-04-09
• 页码: 216-220
• 关键词: KIBALE NATIONAL-PARK; INTERGROUP AGGRESSION; MAHALE MOUNTAINS; community; MODEL; coevolution; COMPETITION; EVOLUTION; networks; VIOLENCE

摘要

Territorial conflicts in animals can inform aspects of human warfare, but civil war, with its shifting group identities, has not been previously observed. We report a rare, permanent fission in the largest-known group of wild chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes). Using 30 years of behavioral observations and network analyses, we describe a transition from cohesion to polarization in 2015 and the emergence of two distinct groups by 2018. Over the next 7 years, members of one group made 24 attacks, killing at least seven mature males and 17 infants in the other group. These findings indicate that group identities can shift and escalate into lethal hostility in one of our closest living relatives in the absence of the cultural markers often thought necessary for human warfare.