A Floresta Mágica do meu tempo era um bocadinho mais calma

.

E ainda não sei qual o impacto que a substituição do mito dos Gorilas-Brancos-que-protegem-as-minas-do-Rei-Salomão por Chimpanzés-Gigantes-que-comem-leões terá no meu bem estar psíquico, mas isto é fascinante:

.

"Deep in the Congolese jungle is a band of apes that, according to local legend, kill lions, catch fish and even howl at the moon. Local hunters speak of massive creatures that seem to be some sort of hybrid between a chimp and a gorilla. (...)

.

Early speculation that the apes may be some yeti-like new species or a chimp/gorilla hybrid proved unfounded, but the truth has turned out to be in many ways even more fascinating. They are actually a population of super-sized chimps with a unique culture - and it seems, a taste for big cat flesh.(...)

.

Mr Hicks reports that he found a unique chimp culture. For example, unlike their cousins in other parts of Africa the chimps regularly bed down for the night in nests on the ground. Around a fifth of the nests he found were there rather than in the trees. "How can they get away with sleeping on the ground when there are lions, leopards, golden cats around as well as other dangerous animals like elephants and buffalo?" said Mr Hicks. "I don't like to paint them as being more aggressive, but maybe they prey on some of these predators and the predators kind of leave them alone." (...)

.

Mr Hicks said the animals also have what he calls a "smashing culture" - a blunt but effective way of solving problems. He has found hundreds of snails and hard-shelled fruits smashed for food, seen chimps carrying termite mounds to rocks to break them open and also found a turtle that was almost certainly smashed apart by chimps. Like chimp populations in other parts of Africa, the Bili chimps use sticks to fish for ants, but here the tools are up to 2.5 metres long. (...)"

O resto da história pode ser lido aqui.