This is Scientific American 60-Second Science. I'm Christopher and Daljata.

Chimpanzees can make tools, they display emotions, and they can outfox humans at certain

memory games, but chimps also resemble us in another way. They use medicine. They're

known to eat tough leaves and bitter plants to purge parasites from their guts.

Now researchers have observed chimps applying and never before seen type of treatment. They

snatch up flying insects and apply them to their wounds. You can see this happening

in a video they filmed at Luongo National Park in Central Africa. Suzie is sitting up and

then she's catching something from underneath the bush. She's putting it between her lips.

She seems to press it and then she's grabbing the foot of her son with wound and then she is

applying the insect onto the wound. Simona Pica is a cognitive biologist at the University of

Ozenberg in Germany, part of a team that studies these chimps. She says it's possible that insects

have antibacterial or soothing qualities, but this could also be a cultural practice with no medical

benefit at all. Maybe an individual just found out that it's intriguing, then I get a lot of

intention, others calm, maybe then I get some grooming, and so it just resulted into a social

behavior. After all, Pica points out that humans perform plenty of rituals with no obvious function.

Her team reported their findings in the journal Current Biology, and they write that this could be

an example of what's called pro-social behavior. They help each other and it's not just the mother

helping her offspring and it's not somebody helping somebody to increase their genetic benefits,

but it's also individuals who are not related with each other. As for the insects, the team has not yet

identified any remains. Because it's probably very, very tiny pieces and we are primatologists,

but now we talk to entomologists and now we have an idea of how to find even smallest remains and

then there are also techniques to then identify these pieces. If they do, they'll be able to learn

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