"We humans like to fancy ourselves unique in lots of different ways. - I love this report [View all]

It’s all about evolution
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2025/may/14/chimpanzees-use-leaves-to-wipe-bums-and-clean-up-after-sex-study-finds

Humans are not unique in having a host of hygiene and healthcare habits, researchers have found: chimpanzees also wipe their bottoms, tend each other’s wounds and even clean up after sex, according to a new study.

The research from the University of Oxford is not the first to show that great apes take care of themselves. Scientists have previously found chimpanzees use insects to treat their own wounds and those of others, while orangutans have been observed treating wounds with the sap and chewed leaves of plants with known medicinal properties.

However, the researchers say their study offers fresh insights into such behaviour in chimpanzees, revealing they too apply chewed plant material to their wounds, and suggests health-related care could be more widespread among these primates than previously thought.

“We humans like to fancy ourselves unique in lots of different ways. And I think for a long time, we thought that healthcare was one of those ways in which we humans are special,” said Dr Elodie Freymann, one of the authors of the study.