Ronan Donovan Instagram – Another quiet moment between Mususu and her son, Moon. At the time I took this photo, Mususu would have been ~40 years old and Moon was her 4th baby. Mususu was a northern female and I didn’t see her very much. She was shy. Within this wild chimpanzee community that I followed as a researcher in 2011, there were specific sub-groups of females that preferred to keep to a region within community’s territory. Some to the north or to the south and some kept to the center of the territory.     While the total number of chimpanzees in this community was 58 at the time, never in the history of the 40 year study did this group have all 58 members been the same place. Like humans, elephants, bats, and some whale species (to name a few), chimps are a fission-fusion society. Essentially this means that the social structure of chimps is dynamic. A large group of 30 comes together to feed on ripe figs, lets say, while other smaller groups of 4-8 chimps are a few miles away feeding on something else.⁣⁣ It makes for very interesting days following chimps through their equatorial forest, you never know who will show up.  Learn more about chimps in the current issue of @natgeo magazine, through my posts here and by following the conservation NGO @bulindichimps  .⁣⁣  .⁣⁣  .⁣⁣  .⁣⁣  #chimpanzee #chimp #chimpanzees #chimps #ape #wildlife #conservation #animals #africa #uganda #bulindi #bulindichimps #wildlifephotography #nature #natgeo⁣⁣ Uganda