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Paper: https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.add9752

> This study was the first to explore if a savannah-mosaic habitat would account for increased time spent on the ground by our closest living relative, the chimpanzee. The team investigated the behaviour of wild chimpanzees living in the savannah-mosaic habitat in the Issa Valley of western Tanzania, a habitat very similar to the habitats of early hominins.

>It was expected that the Issa chimpanzees would spend more time on the ground and walk upright on two feet more in open savannah vegetation where they cannot easily travel via the tree canopy, like they can in the forests. Moreover, when compared to their forest-dwelling cousins in other parts of Africa, it was expected that the Issa chimpanzees would be more terrestrial overall.

>Instead, compared to chimpanzees living in forest sites, Issa chimpanzees did not spend more time on the ground. The Issa chimpanzees spent just as much time, if not more, in the trees as the forest-dwelling chimpanzees. Moreover, when they used bipedalism, it was almost always in the trees, rather than on the ground, as predicted.

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Well but if there were no trees? Can't hang out on trees if there are no trees.

I guess this is probably the best way to study the idea but I'm not sure how well you can map the results out long term from this study. This group of Chimps have evolved towards a tree dwelling environment and happen to be living near some plains but they're still starting from a tree dwelling specialized body. The human chimp common ancestor was less specialized, and perhaps would have acted in the predicted manner.

If we took this study to the logical extreme then chimps in the forest should be walking around bipedally in the trees, which they aren't.

The hypothesis itself isn’t novel though. It seems bipedalism as a better motion modality in arboreal primates evolved several times; for example it seems to have evolved among primates in Europe too.

I thought Bonobos were more closely related to humans than Chimps