Toshisada Nishida (1941–2011): Chimpanzee Rapport

Obituary Toshisada Nishida (1941–2011): Chimpanzee Rapport Frans B. M. de Waal* Living Links, Yerkes National Primate Research Center, Emory University, Atlanta, Georgia, United States of America ‘‘Chimpanzees are always new to me.’’ Toshisada Nishida [1] One of the absolute greats of primatology, Toshisada Nishida (March 3, 1941– June 7, 2011), recently passed away at the age of 70 (Figure 1). We have come such a long way in our knowledge of chimpanzees, and the discoveries have reached us in such a gradual and cumulative fashion, that it is easy to forget how little was known when Nishida set out for Africa to establish one of the first chimpanzee field sites, in 1965. At the time, chimpanzees did not yet occupy the special place in our thinking about human evolution reserved for them today. Science considered baboons the best model of human evolution, since baboons had descended from the trees to become savanna-dwellers, like our ancestors. These rambunctious monkeys, however, are genetically more distant from us, and many of the characteristics deemed important for human evolution Figure 1. Toshisada Nishida in a Kyoto temple, in 2007. Photograph by Frans de Waal. are either absent or minimally developed, doi:10.1371/journal.pbio.1001185.g001 such as tool technology, cooperative hunt- ing, food sharing, territoriality, cultural patiently for chimpanzees at a patch of any need for social bonds—not unlike traditions, and certain cognitive capacities, sugar cane planted to attract them. The Rousseau’s noble savages—Nishida had such as planning and theory-of-mind. primates started to make regular visits only noticed that chimpanzees live a communal Chimpanzees show all of them. after about six months. Based on his field life with territorial boundaries and perhaps Early primatologists had seen chimpan- observations, Nishida defended his disser- even hostility between neighboring unit- zees travel through the trees, eating fruits tation at Kyoto University in 1968. He groups. This was not an easy discovery, at their leisure, but rarely noticed anything occupied a teaching position at Tokyo because chimpanzees are often encoun- of interest in their behavior. This was University, from 1969 until 1988, before tered alone or in small groups in the forest. partly due to low visibility and the apes’ he became Full Professor in the Zoology One can determine community relations wariness of people. The study of chim- Department of Kyoto University from only if one recognizes all individuals and panzee behavior in nature began in 1988 until 2004. After his retirement from keeps careful track of their travels. Nishi- earnest only in the 1960s with one field this position, he became Director of the da’s discovery upset not only Western site set up by Jane Goodall in Gombe Japan Monkey Center. notions of chimpanzees as individualists, Stream, and another one 120 km to the One of Nishida’s first discoveries was but also the expectations of his Japanese south by Japanese scientists led by truly groundbreaking. While science still mentors who thought chimpanzees would Nishida. Both teams were in it for the described the chimpanzee as a peaceful live, like humans, in nuclear family–like long haul rather than the brief expeditions arrangements. Debate about what to others had previously undertaken. vegetarian that roamed the forest without Nishida started his career inspired by the legendary father of Japanese primatol- Citation: de Waal FBM (2011) Toshisada Nishida (1941–2011): Chimpanzee Rapport. PLoS Biol 9(10): e1001185. ogy, Kinji Imanishi, at Kyoto University. doi:10.1371/journal.pbio.1001185 As a graduate student of Imanishi’s Published October 25, 2011 successor, Junichiro Itani, Nishida first Copyright: ß 2011 Frans B. M. de Waal. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the studied Japanese macaques before he Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any traveled to Tanzania. He chose a forest medium, provided the original author and source are credited. in the foothills of the Mahale Mountains, Competing Interests: The author has declared that no competing interests exist. at Lake Tanganyika, where he waited * E-mail: [email protected] PLoS Biology | www.plosbiology.org 1 October 2011 | Volume 9 | Issue 10 | e1001185 expect must have been heated, because Mahale ended in 1982, aggressive behav- discovered that wild chimpanzees con- when Nishida’s teacher Itani arrived in ior of the chimpanzees towards neighbors sume Aspilia leaves. These leaves have no Kigoma, the student couldn’t wait for their hardly changed. Moreover, violent behav- known nutritional value, and are in fact physical reunion to shout from aboard the ior has also been reported from field sites not digested. The chimpanzees consume steamship Liemba: ‘‘There is no familoid where researchers never provisioned chim- them very slowly, mostly in the morning, in the chimpanzee society.’’ Itani-sensei panzees. For this reason, there is little swallowing the leaves without chewing. shouted back, ‘‘That can’t be true!’’ doubt among experts that chimpanzee Together with Richard Wrangham, the We have learned much about chimpan- males are naturally violent [2]. first Western primatologist to set foot in zees since then, such as that they hunt and A true pioneer of chimpanzee field Mahale, in 1971, Nishida published his eat meat, that they raid neighboring research, Nishida inspired many students, observations of potentially medicinal use territories, that they have complex tool collaborated with numerous international of plants by wild chimpanzees, thus skills that differ from group to group, that colleagues, and left one of the most founding the new field of zoopharmacognosy they medicate themselves with plants, that impressive publication records of any (i.e., self-medication by animals ingesting males engage in power politics while primatologist (a complete list can be found plants, insects, or soils) [7]. competing over status and females, and in [3]). Nishida was a most dedicated Another important moment in primatolo- so on. The list of discoveries is impressive scientist who in his early career spent gy occurred when William McGrew and and the Mahale field site has been central years, and later many months per year, Caroline Tutin visited Mahale in 1975. in furnishing the evidence. From the start, under relatively primitive circumstances, Extensively familiar with the chimpanzees the approach followed at Mahale has been without tap water or electricity, at Kasoje, in Gombe National Park, they had no reason that of Imanishi, who urged his students to at the foot of the mountains. As a result, he to expect striking behavioral differences in the identify individuals, give them names, and knew all chimpanzees in several groups, same subspecies with the same ecology. follow them over time. Not just for weeks and by ‘‘knowing’’, I mean that he Nevertheless, the Mahale chimpanzees fre- or months, as done previously, but for observed them as infants, saw them grow quently engaged in hand-clasp grooming, years and years, so that one could up as juveniles, and followed them whereas this behavior is entirely unknown understand the kinship relations within through their prime into old age. from Gombe. One chimpanzee takes the the community. With a species that breeds In 1982, at the same time that I wrote hand of another, which they then lift above as slowly and is as long-lived as the Chimpanzee Politics [4], Nishida and his their heads, while both groom each other’s chimpanzee, one needs to follow individ- students were documenting very similar armpits with their free hands. Based on their uals for a long time indeed to know power struggles among wild chimpanzees visit, McGrew and Tutin were the first to whether or not two adult males are [5,6], including one by a male named seriously question the assumption of ‘‘typical’’ brothers or how many offspring a female Kalunde. Kalunde played a game that chimpanzee behavior, an important step rears during her lifetime. Before scientists Nishida called ‘‘allegiance-fickleness,’’ which towards culture studies on the great apes [8]. learned to analyze DNA from fecal or hair allows over-the-hill males to carve out a key Nishida fostered many such contacts, samples, the only way to determine position by regularly switching sides in and was central in bringing Japanese kinship relations was to hunker down for alliances with younger adult males. It was a primatology and Western scientists togeth- the long term. thrill for me to meet Kalunde on a visit to the er. He stimulated his students and col- At the time, habituation of chimpanzees Mahale Mountains, and see Nishida in leagues to write in English, and was was typically done by means of food action. Nishida lived up to his reputation in himself the first Japanese primatologist to provisioning. Nishida first tried sugarcane, the field, being incredibly knowledgeable not publish an entire article in this language. until he found that bananas worked better. only about the primates he studied, but about He was first author or editor on no less He developed a ‘‘mobile provisioning’’ the forest as a whole and all of the flora and than 17 books and volumes, mostly in technique, in which scientists announced fauna therein. Not satisfied with bookish Japanese, but the last two in English. His their presence to distant chimpanzees by knowledge, he personally tasted each and work was characterized by great attention imitating the species-typical hooting calls, every new leaf or fruit that he saw his to the smallest details, resulting in com- after which the apes would approach and chimpanzees consume—the ultimate act of prehensive catalogues of behavior patterns obtain food. This way, their normal roaming identification with one’s subjects. [9]. Nishida’s magnum opus, Chimpanzees patterns remained intact, as they never Nishida had met ‘‘my’’ chimpanzees of the Lakeshore: Natural History and Culture at attached themselves to a fixed feeding site.

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