Tender: Pansy's 'friends' and family crowd around her - top left in this view - in the final stages of her illnessAnyone who has peered into the eyes of a chimpanzee knows that our closest relatives in the animal kingdom are intelligent and thoughtful creatures.
And now an extraordinary study has shown just how alike we are.
For the first time, scientists have captured on video a group of captive chimps caring for a dying elderly female, Pansy
The researchers say the studies show that chimps - who share 98.5 per cent of their DNA with humans - have a 'highly developed' awareness of death.
They even believe the research sheds light on the origins of our own attitudes to dying
When the keepers realised that Pansy - who was thought to have been in her sixties - was close to death, they gave her painkillers and filmed the group.
As Pansy grew weaker, the three other chimps gently lifted her head and shook her shoulders to see if she was dead.
Some stroked her head and made her comfortable. Others kept her clean and checked her regularly to see if she was still breathing.
Staying close: The chimps remain with Pansy - seen at bottom left in these pictures - stroking her head and making her comfortable. They also kept her clean and checked her regularly to see if she was still breathingZookeeper Alasdair Gillies, who published an account of the mourning with colleagues from Stirling University, said: 'On the day she died, she crawled across into her daughter's nest, which was an incredible feat considering she was close to death.
'I decided to let the other chimpanzees in so that they could be together and she could die with dignity. It felt like the right thing to do.
'What followed was incredible. It was one of the most moving experiences of my life. It looked like they were comforting her by grooming her intently.
'They behaved just like a group of human friends would if a friend died.'
Rosie (back), Pansy's daughter, seen here with Chippy, lay beside her mother after she died, holding her body tight
Chippy the chimp in one of the enclosures. Footage taken at a wildlife park in Scotland showed the animals apparently comforting terminally ill chimp Pansy in the hours before she died
Sharing our DNA: Researchers believe the behaviour of chimps like Chippy shed light on the origins of our own attitudes towards deathOnce they discovered she had stopped breathing, the three left the enclosure.
Pansy's daughter, Rosie, later returned, lay down and slept face to face with her mother for the night.
For four weeks the chimps were clearly depressed. They slept badly and demanded attention from their keepers. And they refused to sleep on the platform where Pansy had died for five nights.
Mr Gillies added: 'It was astonishing. When we opened the door after Pansy died, the atmosphere was eerie, you could cut it with a knife.'
The elderly chimpanzee arrived at the Blair Drummond Safari and Adventure Park in Stirlingshire in 1979 and lived at the zoo with another mother and child - 60-year-old Blossom and her 22-year-old son Chippie.
Sad moment: Pansy the chimp, shortly after she died - her family were seen to be mourning for weeks afterwardsDr Jim Anderson of Stirling University, a co-author of the paper in Current Biology, said: 'We found it very difficult to avoid seeing parallels between how we know human's respond to losing a close companion or family members, and what the chimps were doing.'
'This is shedding light on the origins of how humans respond to death today.'
A second study shows how chimpanzees cope with a baby's death.
Researchers, led by Dr Dora Biro of Oxford University, watched two mothers carry the bodies of their dead infants with them for weeks - caring and tending for them like real babies.
The researchers believe the mothers - studied in the forests surrounding Bossou, Guinea - used the time to adapt to the death of the infant.
This behaviour shows just how strong the bond is between chimpanzee mothers and their offspring, that it carries on even after death.
The mothers groomed their babies and took them into the nests. Eventually they allowed others in the group to handle them and tolerating longer and longer periods of separation.
After a few weeks they allow other infants and young chimps to carry off and play with the mummified corpses.
source: dailymail
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