Jane Goodall was the keynote speaker. I have always admired Dr. Goodall, and had some questions for her about milk and its importance in primate society. They dine on nearly two hundred different plants, seeds, grains and fruits. They eat ten different species of termites and ants, sometimes fashioning tools to dig these insects out of their nests. They eat bush pigs, which they hunt in organized parties, and occasionally raid baboons, stealing their infants and ripping apart their flesh.
Chimpanzees have a particular taste for other animals including red colobus monkeys.
Occasionally they pick out undigested seeds from their own feces. Although this sounds disgusting, this indicates that they eat whatever looks and tastes good, and whatever is digestible and readily available. Considering the fact that humans are the only species of animal to drink milk as adults, there remained a curiosity and necessity for me to find out if adult chimpanzees also enjoyed the taste of breast milk. Chimpanzee mothers breastfeed. During the first two-three years of an infant chimpanzee' s life, breastfeeding is intensive.