Notes from the forest: chimp teeth photography

benfink (53)in #nature • 6 years ago (edited)

Is taking photos of chimps research? It is if they're yawning.

Hi steemit! I'm a doctoral student studying wild chimpanzees in Uganda. I'd love to share some bits of chimp science and forest life with you.

Here's a photo from just the other day.

Not scary, sleepy! Here's Garrison, a 41 year old male. He may be the oldest male of his group, but he's still quite high ranking.

Fortunately, we can learn a lot from looking at chimp's teeth up close. A 2013 study used high def photos of young chimpanzees to look at molar eruption times, the age at which certain teeth emerged! These types of studies definitely have some of the best figures of any research papers.

A pretty gosh darn cute figure from Machanda et al. 2015

Unfortunately, I'm not taking photos of cute infants, quite the opposite. I'm asking questions about tooth wear in old primates.

Here's Bartok. A 44 year old male.

Why might worn teeth matter? Because chimps spend a lot of their time chewing. A. Lot. One of my research focuses is whether aging teeth make it tougher for old apes to get enough nutrients.