A comprehensive guide to chimpanzee behavior

Review of the audio-visual encyclopedia on ‘‘Chimpanzee Behavior in the Wild’’ by T. Nishida, K. Zamma, T. Matsusaka, A. Inaba and W.C. Mc Grew. Springer, Japan, Life Science, 2010. An ethogram usually reflects the main focal point of research that it has been designed to describe. Research on conflict management will need more detail on aggressive behaviors than a study on food processing, which in contrast will need more elaborate descriptions of, for example, tool use. The mission to generate a comprehensive catalogue of chimpanzee behavior in the wild, therefore, is just like painting the Forth Bridge. Nonetheless, a team led by Toshisada Nishida and William C. McGrew has taken on this Sisyphean task and compiled a list of almost 1,400 behaviors published in a new book on ‘‘Chimpanzee Behavior in the Wild’’ by Springer, Japan. Each of the behavioral terms is carefully described and any corresponding behaviors from other published ethograms are pointed out using the appropriate references. All behavior names follow the same rule stating the verb first sand then the noun or adjective. This method allows all behavioral terms based on the same activity to appear next to each other in the alphabetical glossary. As a result the reader finds all the grooming terms summarized over three consecutive pages, but the titles are unusual for the chimpanzee literature (e.g. groom self instead of ‘‘self groom’’). Once the reader has adopted the rule, however, the behaviors are rather easy to find. The authors took care to provide the reader with additional information rather than simply describing the behaviors. Every behavioral term is categorized within three different topics.