Chimps have been reported dancing in rainstorms 鈥� and now it seems our closest relation has a 鈥渇ire dance鈥�, too. A dominant male chimp performed such a dance in the face of a raging savannah fire in Senegal.
Anthropologist of Iowa State University in Ames recounts that the male faced the fire with 鈥渁 really exaggerated slow-motion display鈥� before redirecting his display at chimps sheltering in a nearby baobab tree. Barking vocalisations from the male, never heard in more than 2000 hours of monitoring the group, were also heard.
Pruetz and co-author at the East Stroudsburg University of Pennsylvania suggest that the chimps were cognisant enough to predict the fire鈥檚 movement, retreating short distances at a time while staying calm. Other animals, in contrast, panic when fire approaches.
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鈥淚f chimps with their small brain size can conceptually deal with fire, then maybe we should rethink some of the earliest evidence for fire usage,鈥� Pruetz says. The earliest confirmed evidence of controlled fire use dates to several thousand years ago but some palaeoanthropologists argue control began as far back as 1 to 2聽million years ago. The chimps鈥� responses to two fires 鈥� set for land clearance 鈥� were seen in 2006.
Primatologist William McGrew at the University of Cambridge is wary of granting chimps a 鈥渃onceptualisation of fire鈥�, but further work could yield interesting results, he says.
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