![]() Mitochondrial DNA resolved from hairs taken from the nests found in 2003 that the chimpanzees belonged to Pan troglodytes schweinfurthii. Cleve Hicks, a primatologist recruited by Ammann in 2004, stated "genetically, they're not even a subspecies". Williams vowed to continue without him, making plans for another expedition. Ammann had published a letter in 2003 decrying Williams' unprofessional involvement. These and other sensational pronouncements to the media proved controversial, and Williams was subsequently no longer welcome to study the animals with Ammann. "At the very least, we have a unique, isolated chimp culture that's unlike any that's been studied", she said. The apes, she argued, could be a new species unknown to science, a new subspecies of chimpanzee, or a hybrid of the gorilla and the chimpanzee. "The unique characteristics they exhibit just don't fit into the other groups of apes", said Williams. Williams claimed to have observed three species of chimpanzees, including this new one, during her summer tour. Other reports attribute this statement to Ammann. Then there are the "lion killers", which seldom climb trees, are bigger and darker, and are unaffected by the poison arrows. There are the "tree beaters", which disperse high into the trees to stay safe, and easily succumb to the poison arrows used by local hunters. Īccording to Williams, who claims she learnt Lingala, the local populace classified great apes into two distinct groups. They were coming in for the kill – but as soon as they saw my face they stopped and disappeared". These guys were quiet, and they were huge. If this had been a mock charge they would have been screaming to intimidate us. Williams reported on her close encounter, "we could hear them in the trees, about 10 m away, and four suddenly came rushing through the brush towards me. Williams returned to the US with videos, apparently purchased from one of Ammann's long-term trackers. Also recruited by Ammann was Shelly Williams, an experimental psychologist affiliated with National Geographic magazine, who claimed to be the first scientist to see the 'Bili apes'. Īfter the Second Congo War ended in 2003, it was easier for scientists to conduct field research in the Congo. In 2001, an international team of scientists, including George Schaller and Mike Belliveau, were recruited by Karl Ammann to search for apes, but the venture came up empty. Although they did not see any chimpanzees, they did find several well-worn ground nests, characteristic of gorillas rather than chimpanzees, in swampy river beds. Īmmann, with a group of foreign researchers, returned in 2000 to an area described by a Cameroonian bushmeat hunter he had sent to scout the area first a few years earlier. ![]() Ammann also measured a faecal dropping three times as big as normal chimpanzee dung and casts of footprints as large as or larger than a gorilla's. Ammann purchased a photograph from hunters of what looked like a very big chimpanzee. Instead, Ammann bought a skull that had dimensions like that of a chimpanzee, but with a prominent sagittal crest like that of a gorilla. Karl Ammann, a Swiss Kenyan photographer and anti- bushmeat campaigner, first visited the city in 1996, looking for the gorillas. Colin Groves examined the skulls in 1970 and determined that they were indistinguishable from western gorillas. These were sent to the colonial power of Belgium in 1927, a new subspecies of gorilla, Gorilla gorilla uellensis, was described based upon these specimens. Skulls of gorillas were first collected near the town of Bili in 1908. Genetic testing with non-nuclear DNA in 2003 immediately indicated that it was in fact part of the already described eastern chimpanzee ( Pan troglodytes schweinfurthii), a subspecies of the common chimpanzee. Scientists soon determined they were common chimpanzees, and part of a larger contiguous population stretching throughout that part of northern Congo. "The apes nest on the ground like gorillas, but they have a diet and features characteristic of chimpanzees", according to a 2003 National Geographic article. The Bili apes, or Bondo mystery apes, were names given in 2003 in sensational reports in the popular media to a purportedly new species of highly aggressive, giant ape supposedly inhabiting the wetlands and savannah around of the village of Bili in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Chimpanzees in the northern Democratic Republic of the Congo Bili ape ![]()
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