What happened to the little chimp that mom mourned over

The infant had been observed behaving sickly ever since birth when, on May 18, 2010, researchers saw the chimpanzee mother, Masya, carrying the dead body of her offspring. Masya continued to carry her lifeless child until the following day when observers were present to record what they saw next. The infant was placed in a clearing while Masya sat a short distance away staring at the motionless form. Researchers recorded over the next hour as the mother approached her offspring 23 times to place her hands on the child. 21 of these contacts were directed toward her offspring’s face or neck. At the end of this display Masya once again picked up her infant and carried her to the center of the social group about 20 meters away. When she laid her infant down the other group members, eight in total, proceeded to gently touch, stroke the dead infants belly, and groom it with straw. After about twenty minutes Masya retrieved the body and walked off. The next day Masya was observed on her own, she had let go of her dead child.

This is not the first time that primates have been observed to pay special attention to a deceased member of their group. In April last year similar behaviors were observed by a chimpanzee mother in Bossou, Guinea who ended up carrying her infant’s body for a total of 27 days. The mother, Jire, regularly groomed and slept next to her infant’s body and showed distress whenever they became separated. In 2000 a chimpanzee mother in the Mahale Mountains of Tanzania carried her infants body for nearly four months and individuals throughout the community were heard making distinctive vocalizations that the researchers had come to associate with fear and agitation. Other cases have been observed in the mountain gorillas of Rwanda, baboons of Ethiopia, macaques in Japan, and ring-tailed lemurs of Madagascar.
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