By Suleman Juma, Tracker - Greystoke MahaleQuite recently I watched a male chimpanzee, Carter, picking leaves from a fig tree, the ficus exasperata. He picked the leaves one at a time while sitting on a thick, forked branch of the tree. I watched him rolling the leaves strategically with the rough surface facing outward. He then put them straight into his mouth and swallowed with no apparent sign of chewing. He kept on doing that for about 8 minutes, before he climbed down out of the tree to join others who were busy grooming.
Chimpanzees normally eat these fig leaves in this way when feeling a stomach ache, related to an infestation of worms. The following day when I went tracking, I came along a fresh chimpanzees’ dung. Looking thoroughly into it, I could see a few worms attached t
o the unchewed rolled leaves. The dung had a wet urine mark beside it showing that it was fresh, but it could have been any chimpanzees within the community .Roots of the ficus exasperata can cure stomach ache in humans. For years now local people around Mahale Mountains National Park have copied chimpanzees’ use of this plant, and have made decoctions from the ficus exasperata’s roots to cure stomach ache and worms.
