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Chimpanzee mother applies insect to wound on her son

00:36

Mother chimp treats son's injury with ‘insect lotion’ in never-before-seen footage

A mother chimpanzee has been filmed treating her son's wounded foot with insects in first of it's kind footage.

The behaviour which has never been documented before sees the mum, named Suzee inspecting her son, Sia's wounded foot.

Suzee then snatches an insect out of the air, squeezes it in her mouth and then places it carefully in the cut.

In the following months, Ozouga Chimpanzee Project conservationists and biologists Alessandra Mascaro, Lara M. Southern, Tobias Deschner and Simone Pika repeatedly saw the chimps applying, removing, and reapplying the insects onto injuries as a way to "medicate".

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