What Do Chimpanzees Eat? Fruit, Leaves, Insects and Meat

Fruit: the heart of the chimpanzee diet

A wild chimpanzee spends more of its feeding time on fruit than on anything else. In a study in Budongo Forest, Uganda, chimpanzees devoted about 64 percent of their feeding time to fruit, mostly ripe, and about 19 percent to leaves. At most long-term study sites, fruit makes up roughly half to three quarters of feeding time.

Figs are especially important. Fig trees fruit at different times of year, so there is almost always one somewhere in the forest, and chimpanzees remember where large trees grow and when they are likely to be ripe. They often travel several kilometers a day between fruiting trees.

Chimpanzees are also important seed dispersers. They swallow many seeds whole and pass them unharmed, often far from the parent tree.

Leaves, pith, flowers and other plant foods

When fruit is scarce, chimpanzees eat more young leaves, leaf buds, flowers, stems, pith (the soft core of some plants), bark and resin. At sites such as Gombe in Tanzania, researchers have recorded well over 100 different plant foods. These “fallback foods” are less nutritious than ripe fruit but help chimpanzees through the lean season.

Chimpanzees also eat soil from termite mounds and clay from certain sites. This habit, called geophagy, may provide minerals or help bind toxins from plant foods.

Insects, honey and eggs

Insects are a small but steady source of protein and fat. Chimpanzees eat termites, weaver ants, driver ants, caterpillars and bee larvae, and they raid bees’ nests for honey. Many of these foods are collected with tools:

• Termite fishing: a thin stem or twig is pushed into a termite mound, and termites that bite onto it are pulled out and eaten.
• Ant dipping: a longer wand is dipped into a column of aggressive driver ants, which swarm up it and are quickly swept into the mouth.
• Honey dipping: sticks and clubs are used to open and probe beehives.

These skills differ between communities and are learned over years, as explained in Do chimpanzees use tools? Chimpanzees also eat birds’ eggs and nestlings when they find them.

Do chimpanzees eat meat?

Yes. Chimpanzees hunt and eat meat at every long-term study site, although the amount varies widely. The most common prey is the red colobus monkey, and other prey includes other monkeys, young baboons, galagos (bushbabies), young bushpigs, small antelopes such as duikers, and squirrels.

Most hunts are carried out by groups of adult males. In the Taï Forest of Côte d’Ivoire, hunters appear to take on different roles, with some driving the monkeys, others blocking escape routes and others ambushing them. At Ngogo in Uganda, a very large community hunted red colobus so often that the local monkey population declined. Females hunt less often and usually alone.

Meat is often shared, and males may use it to strengthen alliances or to win favor with females. Even so, in most populations meat makes up only a few percent of the diet in an average year.

How does the diet differ from place to place?

Chimpanzees across Africa share a basic fruit-based diet, but each region and community has its own specialties:

Some communities living near farms also take crops such as maize, papaya, mangoes and bananas, which can bring them into conflict with people.

Do chimpanzees use plants as medicine?

Researchers have documented behaviors that look like self-medication. In several populations, chimpanzees fold and swallow whole, rough, hairy leaves early in the morning without chewing them. The leaves pass through the gut and carry out intestinal worms. At Mahale in Tanzania, sick chimpanzees have been seen chewing the bitter pith of the plant Vernonia amygdalina, which they normally avoid.

In 2022, researchers in Loango National Park, Gabon, reported chimpanzees catching small flying insects and applying them to their own wounds and those of other chimpanzees. What effect this has is not yet known.

How does the chimpanzee diet compare with other apes?

Gorillas eat far more leaves, stems and pith than chimpanzees, especially when fruit is scarce; see What do gorillas eat? Bonobos also eat mainly fruit but hunt less often and do not use tools to collect food in the wild as often as chimpanzees. The differences are summarized in chimpanzee vs bonobo.