To recognize conspecifics chimpanzees use their sense of smell

Primates, including humans, are usually thought of as visual animals with reduced reliance on the sense of smell. Research on olfaction in non-human great apes is particularly scarce, although we know that wild chimpanzees sniff the ground and vegetation while patrolling the borders of their territory. In behavioral experiments at Leipzig Zoo, an international team of researchers from the University of Leipzig and the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany, and Durham University, UK, have now found that chimpanzees use olfaction as a prime mode of investigation, and that they recognize group members and kin using olfactory cues.