Central chimpanzee

The central chimpanzee or the tschego (Pan troglodytes troglodytes) is a subspecies of chimpanzee. It can be found in Central Africa, mostly in Gabon, Cameroon, Republic of Congo and the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Central chimpanzees are considered highly intelligent apes. They are also highly social living in large groups and follow a male dominant hierarchy. The activity budgets of this chimpanzee subspecies changes depending on if they were in the wild or sanctuaries. They have been observed using tools, this could be to open nuts or using twigs to gain access to ants and termites.

Central chimpanzees have a key role in the ecology of rainforests; they play an important role as seed dispersers. Even though central chimpanzees and western lowland gorillas overlap the environment in which they live in they do not compete for food as their diets are different.

According to the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), they classify the central chimpanzee as an endangered subspecies. Increasing human presence through deforestation and viruses pose great threats to them.

Diseases in central chimpanzees pose risk to the population of them this include heart issues but also different types of viruses. Central chimpanzees are strong vector carrying. These viruses spread inter species to other species and sometimes to humans. These viruses include the Ebola virus. However, there are also human immunodeficiency viruses (HIV) at the origin which have links to central chimpanzees.