Infants and juveniles make up close to one half of the total population. Young chimps learn by watching others. Mother chimps often develop lifelong relationships with their offspring and usually travel them. Although males rarely leave the community in which they were born, females migrate to new communities during their adolescent heat period. Males form a loose dominance hierarchy, although tension is commonly expressed in interactions when different parties meet.
Males spend much time grooming each other.
Chimpanzees live up to 3048 meters high in tropical, humid forests of deciduous woodland or mixed savanna. Their appearance in open areas depends on access to evergreen fruit-producing forests. Chimps help insure a healthy plant diversity within their habitat because they feed on a variety of fruits and help disperse their seeds. Even though there are as many as 35,000 chimps in the wild, these populations have been reduced and fragmented by human interference with their habitats. People hunt these chimps for food or to protect their crops, and they are exported by commercial animal traders.