Dr Michelle Dickinson: Do animals have empathy?

Beautiful new research out this week contributing to the ongoing debate about whether or not animals have empathy. For the first time, scientists have observed chimpanzees in the west African nation of Gabon making a band aid out of insects to treat wounds. What's interesting is that the apes not only treated their own wounds but also the wounds of their peers. The research published in the journal Current Biology https://www.cell.com/current-biology/fulltext/S0960-9822(21)01732-2?_returnURL seems to show the ability of chimpanzees to selflessly help others.  There is a great video in the paper showing the behaviour which was first seen in 2019, when an adult female chimpanzee named Suzee was observed inspecting a wound on the foot of her adolescent son. Suzee then caught an insect out of the air, put it in her mouth, squeezed it, and then applied it to her son’s wound. She continued to extract and reapply the insect from the wound a further two more times.  While the type of insect used has not been identified there are thoughts that it might contain anti-inflammatory substances that have a soothing effect.   The researchers observed chimpanzees administer the same treatment on themselves at least 19 times and twice on others during the 15-month study. In some cases, one chimp would catch an insect and pass it to a wounded chip for them to self-apply. This occurred in chips that they weren’t genetically related to which shows the potential for animals other than humans to show prosocial abilities. Dr Michelle Dickinson joined Francesca Rudkin. LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.