CHIMPANZEES have been observed attacking and killing gorillas in the wild for the first time – and scientists suggest climate change may be partly to blame.

The attacks took place in Gabon, central Africa, and were believed to have been caused by competition for food.

Relations between chimpanzees and gorillas are traditionally relaxed and they have been recorded peacefully foraging, and having playful encounters.

But researchers witnessed two brutal and fatal mass fights as they were studying chimpanzees in the Loango National Park.

Both encounters took place as chimpanzees were patrolling on the outer limit of their territory. The first battle lasted 52 minutes, and the second one 79 minutes.

On the first occasion, with researchers 100ft away, a group of 27 chimpanzees launched an attack on five gorillas. The western lowland gorillas tried to defend themselves and injured several chimpanzees. Four adult gorillas – two silverbacks and two females – escaped but an infant gorilla was killed.

In the second battle more than two dozen chimpanzees attacked seven gorillas, again killing an infant, which was then eaten.

Researchers from Osnabruck University and the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Germany published their report in the journal Nature.

They said fruit in Gabon’s forests was not as widespread as in the past, suggesting climate change could be a factor. But they said more research was needed to establish the cause of the outbreak of violence among the apes.

Tobias Deschner, one of the study’s authors, said that it was the “first evidence that the presence of chimpanzees can have a lethal impact on gorillas”.

“It could be that sharing of food resources by chimpanzees, gorillas and forest elephants in the Loango National Park results in increased competition, and sometimes even in lethal interactions between the two great ape species,” he added. 

Telegraph Media Group Limited [2021]