Meat-eating 75After a minute there was suddenly a great deal of screaming and buttress drumming. The students
found the adult male chimpanzee Muga sitting low in a tree eating a piece of meat 8 cm long. They
then saw Duane holding the back part of a black and white colobus monkey including the tail and
back legs. The monkey was a subadult, they estimated, not fully grown. Duane was eating the meat
and they heard his teeth crunching on the bones. Vernon approached Duane and put his face near
the meat but Duane did not give him any.
A search on the ground revealed a monkey limb and the head of the monkey which had not been
eaten. Several chimpanzees were around on the ground, and in the trees nearby was the group of
colobus monkeys from which the prey had come; they had kept quiet and hidden during the entire
episode.The third species of forest monkey found in Budongo is the redtail, and as it happened
the next observation of meat-eating was of that species, in May 1995. The observers this
time were Zephyr Kiwede, Geresomu Muhumuza and Nick Newton-Fisher. Maani was
first seen carrying part of a redtail in his mouth as he approached a party of chimpanzees
feeding on Maesopsis fruits. Vernon displayed at Maani who dropped the carcass, at
which Vernon climbed down to get it, and ate it.
The next animal we observed to fall prey to our chimpanzees was a blue duiker. This
happened on 27 January 1999, observed by a student, Kate Arnold, and field assistants
Kakura James, Geresomu Muhumuza and Joseph Karamaji. They were watching a group
of males when they noticed a blue duiker moving along the ground straight towards the
chimps. At 8.45 a.m. it was caught by Bwoya who killed it by biting it in the middle of
its head. From then until 9.52 a.m. it was eaten, with the usual begging and sharing, by
Bwoya, Maani, Andy, Duane (who was given a piece without begging), Jambo, Nkojo
(all males) and Kutu, an adult female, who was given meat by Duane. Finally Muga
begged for the skin from Duane who gave it to him, then Vernon displayed at Muga and
took the skin but Muga screamed and begged for it back and Vernon gave it to him.
This was an excellent display of meat sharing by our males (see Teleki 1973 for a full
analysis of this very interesting topic at Gombe). Of particular note was the fact that on
two occasions Bwoya, a subordinate male but nevertheless the killer of the duiker and
thus with first rights to it in the conventions of chimpanzees, gave meat to Duane, the
dominant male, without Duane having to beg for it. Also, Duane passed on some of his
meat to the adult female Kutu (who was not in oestrus).
A second blue duiker killing, by either Bwoya or Duane or both, occurred on 19 July
- The observers on this occasion were field assistant James Kakura and two students,
Kate Arnold and Siddhartha Singh. At 11.11 a.m. a duiker in distress was heard scream-
ing and Bwoya was found with part of a duiker carcass, a larger part being in the posses-
sion of Duane. Almost immediately other chimpanzees joined them and sat in a huddle.
Meat was obtained by Maani and also by Nora, the juvenile daughter of Nambi, who was
present but without meat. Nora obtained her piece by taking it out of the mouth of the
dominant male Duane! She later obtained a second piece by taking it from Bwoya. This
indicated a privileged status for Nora, in keeping with the fact that her mother Nambi was
the top ranking female in the community. Maani also took meat from Duane’s mouth
on one occasion and from his hand on another, and later still some wadged (i.e. mixed