Bili ape
[1][2] "The apes nest on the ground like gorillas, but they have a diet and features characteristic of chimpanzees", according to a 2003 National Geographic article.
[1] Karl Ammann, a Swiss Kenyan photographer and anti-bushmeat campaigner, first visited the city in 1996, looking for the gorillas.
Ammann also measured a faecal dropping three times as big as normal chimpanzee dung and casts of footprints as large as or larger than a gorilla's.
[1][2] In 2001, an international team of scientists, including George Schaller and Mike Belliveau, were recruited by Karl Ammann to search for apes, but the venture came up empty.
[9] Also recruited by Ammann was Shelly Williams, an experimental psychologist affiliated with National Geographic magazine,[1] who claimed to be the first scientist to see the 'Bili apes'.
[9] According to Williams, who claims she learnt Lingala, the local populace classified great apes into two distinct groups.
These and other sensational pronouncements to the media proved controversial, and Williams was subsequently no longer welcome to study the animals with Ammann.
[2] Mitochondrial DNA resolved from hairs taken from the nests found in 2003 that the chimpanzees belonged to Pan troglodytes schweinfurthii.
Although the apes, including adult males, would surround the humans and display an interest or curiosity in them, somewhat like previous reports, they did not attack or become threatening.
[10] By 2006, Hicks and colleagues had completed another long hunt for the chimpanzees during which they were able to observe the creatures a total of twenty hours.
[14] In 2019, Hicks and others published a comprehensive paper on the chimpanzees of the wider 'Bili-Uéré region', as they termed the central part of the Uélé watershed.
[2] A single skull from Bili has the prominent brow ridge and a sagittal crest similar to that of a gorilla, but other morphological measurements are like those of chimpanzees.
[12] Hicks observed one group far from the roads and villages in 2004, saying that when they encountered it, the chimps not only approached the humans, but also would actually surround them with intent curiosity.
[12] Hicks clarifies Williams' claims as follows: the apes within roughly 20 km (12 mi) of the roads flee humans almost without exception.
[2][10] Civil war and neglect had left the region relatively undeveloped and wild, with people still using home-made guns of ancient design in 2005.
[16] By 2007 they had grown frightened of the new arrivals to the city of Bili as gold was found in the region, and moved south of the Uélé.
[20][21] As of 2014, a large contiguous population of chimpanzees is now known to occur in the lands along both sides of the Uélé throughout Bas-Uélé District, in a range of habitats.
[5][24][25] Over a 14-month period between September 2007 and November 2008, Hicks and his associates documented 34 chimpanzee young and 31 carcasses for sale in the cities of Buta, Aketi and Bambesa.
