Natural Diet of Chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes schweinfurthii): Long-Term Record from the Mahale Mountains, Tanzania

Abstract

All the plant and animal foods recorded to be eaten by wild chimpanzees of Kasoje in the Mahale Mountains, Tanzania between 1965 and 1981 are listed up together with some additional miscellaneous foods. As for the plant foods, the chimpanzees have been confirmed to utilize 328 food items from 198 species (including 8 food items from 6 cultigen species). They also consume 12 species of mammals, 5 species of birds or their eggs (including one domestic species), and more than 15 genera of insects (including at least 25 species). Since drastic inter-annual changes in food composition in the diet of wild chimpanzees exist, only such data collected on the basis of a long-term perspective can reveal their diversified food repertoire.