What is a Nigeria-Cameroon Chimpanzee?

The Chimpanzee is a great ape with a range across West, Central and East Africa.  Currently, chimps are divided into 4 subspecies (see map below).  The Nigeria-Cameroon Chimpanzee is therefore a subspecies of the chimpanzee, found in a small area of Nigeria and Cameroon.

DNA testing is the only way to tell what geographical region a chimpanzee came from. This work isin its infancy and somerelevant articles are listed on this website. WithDNA typing, differences betweenchimp populations can be documented. In the future,this information will be helpful to conservation programswhen decidingwhere to reintroduce captive chimps into the wild.

There is not yet enough information on the differences between the West and Central/East African chimpanzee to describe by physical appearance which subspecies an individual belongs to.  Some features that may be different for the P. t. ellioti subspecies are a darker face, longer hair on the sides of the head/cheeks, and smaller ears than the P. t. troglodytes subspecies.  To the left is primatoligist and artist Stephen D. Nash's rendition of the differences between the two West African subspecies; P. t. ellioti (top) and P. t. verus (bottom).  But there are not yet enough captive chimps who have been DNA tested to document differences between these two subspecies and pictures of wild chimpanzees from Nigeria and Cameroon are very rare.  The photographs above are of a female chimpanzee at an African sanctuary who is known to be from the Nigeria-Cameroon region.