Chimps have hygiene skills and care for each other, study shows

Humans are not unique in having hygiene and healthcare habits, researchers have found: chimpanzees also wipe their bottoms, tend each other's wounds and even clean up after sex, according to a new study.

- Nicola Davis

The research from the University of Oxford is not the first to show that great apes take care of themselves. Scientists have previously found chimpanzees use insects to treat their own wounds and those of others, while orangutans have been observed treating wounds with the sap and chewed leaves of plants with known medicinal properties.

However, the researchers said their study offered fresh insights into such behaviour in chimpanzees, revealing they too applied chewed plant material to their wounds, and suggested health-related care could be more widespread among these primates than previously thought.