Mahale Mountains National Park

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Chimpanzees in the Mahale

The Mahale Mountains National Park ( English Mahale Mountains National Park ) is a national park in the west of Tanzania ( East Africa ), directly on the east bank of Lake Tanganyika . It covers an area of ​​around 1,650 square kilometers, extends over an altitude of 800 to 2,400 meters above sea level and is 150 kilometers south of Kigoma . The highest point is Mount Nkungwe with a height of 2,400 meters.

description

Location of the national park in western Tanzania
Park landscape seen from the lake

The national park consists mainly of forest areas, in particular the Miombo woodland and various forms of tropical rainforest that extend up the mountain slopes to an altitude of 2000 meters.

The national park provides habitat for around 700 chimpanzees , it is the southernmost occurrence of the subspecies Eastern chimpanzee ( Pan troglodytes schweinfurthii ). Mahale is known for its abundant bird life (around 230 different species). In addition to chimpanzees, there are five other species of monkey: Anubis baboon , black and white colobus monkey , Uganda colobus monkey , green monkey and red-tailed monkey . You can also meet warthogs and various antelope species . The only bigger big cat is the leopard . There are no buffalos , rhinos or elephants here because of the seclusion .

In the mid-1960s, a Japanese research team led by the researcher Nishida began to habituate two groups of chimpanzees in the Mahale Mountains National Park. Michael Huffmann from Kyoto University has been researching medicinal plant use in chimpanzees here since the mid-1980s.

literature

Web links

Commons : Mahale  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Coordinates: 6 ° 16 ′ 0 ″  S , 29 ° 56 ′ 0 ″  E