header: Chimpanzee
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line Pan troglodytes Blumenbach, 1779


DISTRIBUTION

The chimpanzee has a wide but discontinuous distribution in Equatorial Africa between 13 N and 7 S. All three subspecies of chimpanzee now occupy greatly reduced ranges.

The western subspecies, P. t. verus, once occurred from southern Senegal eastwards as far as the Niger River in central Nigeria, and could be found in all or part of 13 countries. The largest remaining population is now in Côte d'Ivoire, with smaller populations in Guinea, Sierra Leone, and Liberia. Only relict populations are found in Mali, Ghana and Senegal and the subspecies is extinct in the wild in Gambia, Burkina Faso, Benin, western Nigeria and possibly Togo. It is the most threatened subspecies of chimpanzee, and is listed separately by IUCN as Endangered. Recently, DNA analyses of Western Chimpanzees have shown that they appear to have been isolated from other chimpanzees for 1.5 million years and may merit being classified as a dist inct species.22

The central subspecies, P. t. troglodytes, occurs from Nigeria east of the Niger River to the Ubanghi River and south to the Zaïre River, with a range encompassing all or part of seven countries. Flourishing populations are now found only where larg e areas of forest remain relatively undisturbed. The majority of the known population is found in Gabon, with substantial populations presumed to exist in Cameroon and Congo.6 Small, isolated or relict populations occur in t he Central African Republic, Equatorial Guinea, eastern Nigeria and Angola (Cabinda enclave). Recent surveys suggest chimpanzees are more numerous in eastern Nigeria than previously estimated (R. Barnwell, WWF-UK, pers.com.).

The eastern subspecies, P. t. schweinfurthi, is found from the confluence of the Ubanghi and Zaïre rivers in western Zaïre, eastwards to the southern end of Lake Tanganyika in Tanzania, and from there northwards to Burundi, Rwanda, Uganda and so uthern Sudan.4,6,11 Substantial numbers may still exist in the vast unsurveyed areas of eastern Zaïre, but in the other five countries of its range populations are small and scattered.

Range States: Angola (Cabinda enclave); Burundi; Cameroon; Central African Republic; Congo; Côte d'Ivoire; Equatorial Guinea; Gabon; Ghana; Guinea; Guinea-Bissau (ex?); Liberia; Mali; Nigeria; Rwanda (ex?); Senegal; Sierra Leone; Sudan; Tanzan ia; Uganda; Zaïre; Gambia (reintroduced).


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