Bonobos at the “Lola Ya Bonobo” Sanctuary in the Democratic Republic of the Congo

Fig. 1. Dermatophytosis on the faces of the Mahale M-group chimpanzees. See the text for details. 3 infant males, 2 of 10 infant females). These 12 chimpanzees had dermatophytosis on their faces, in particular, upper lip, nose, cheek, and supraorbital ridge (Fig.1). The exception was Michio, who had a white mark on the back of his hand, as well as a white face. Although we could not always check all individuals during the study periods, it was likely that the skin disease lasted several weeks (minimum, median = 14 days) for each victim and the longest span was 35 days. The infectious nature of the disease was inferred from the victims being concentrated to the short period of September to October, 2001 and from the close relationships among at least some victims: for example, Miya is the mother of Michio, and Ruby is the mother of Rubicon. Roy described a fungal disease from the chimpanzees of Gombe, but not this type of skin disease. Bill Wallauer’s recent blog shows a photograph of a Gombe chimpanzee, Faustino, who appeared to show the same skin disease as described here. Neither victims nor the others showed any attention to the infected parts of the body; the victims did not scratch the whitish parts of their faces. Later, all individuals recovered their normal dark faces without experiencing any apparent health problems (Cf. Hubbard).