They have been observed using tools, this could be to open nuts or using twigs to gain access to ants and termites.

Even though central chimpanzees and western lowland gorillas overlap the environment in which they live in they do not compete for food as their diets are different.

According to the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), they classify the central chimpanzee as an endangered subspecies.

Diseases in central chimpanzees pose risk to the population of them this include heart issues but also different types of viruses.

Troglodytes is Greek for 'cave-dweller', and was coined by Johann Friedrich Blumenbach in his Handbuch der Naturgeschichte (Handbook of Natural History), published in 1779.

[2] Central chimpanzees are found predominantly in tropical moist forest and wet savanna woodlands, as well as the forest-savanna mosaics where these two biomes meet, from sea level to 3,000 metres (9,800 ft).

A physical characteristic that distinguishes the central chimpanzee from other subspecies is that it has less hair covering its face.

These factors combined make them very effective seed dispersers and a circuital element to the ecological rainforest environment.

[9] It was also seen that central chimpanzees in the Montane forest of Kahuzi swallowed two different types of leaves of Commelinaceae for medical purposes.

[11] The 2007 International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List of Threatened Species classifies the central chimpanzee as endangered.

[2] The World Wildlife Fund (WWF) estimates there are as many as 115,000 individuals alive,[1] but that the number is more likely between 47,000 and 78,000[3] The central chimpanzee only has large, robust populations where large amounts of forest are left undisturbed; smaller, isolated populations also remain.

[2] Major threats to central chimpanzee populations include Ebola virus disease, poaching for bushmeat, and habitat destruction.

[1][2][3] The IUCN attributes this to increasing human presence (agriculture, de-forestation, development) and political instability.

[2] Due to the close genetic relationship to gorillas, orangutans and humans, central chimpanzees are vulnerable to viruses that afflict humans, such as Ebola, the common cold, influenza, pneumonia, whooping cough, tuberculosis, measles, yellow fever, HIV and may contract other parasitological diseases such as schistosomiasis, filariasis, giardiasis, and salmonellosis.

[13] But in central chimpanzees, the post mortem analysis of this cause of death is complex to observe.

[14] The spread of Ebola is commonly inter species especially between western lowland gorillas and central chimpanzees.

[15] In another study done about the 1996 outbreak that happened in North Eastern Gabbon, showed that the population of central chimpanzees had a high risk of death if exposed to this virus.

[16] This threat from Ebola pandemics combined with conservation and habitat destruction pose a large issue to the central chimpanzee population.

It is also noted in the study that the Ebola outbreak has caused a large decrease of the central chimpanzee population as well.

HIV-1 is the more virulent and easily transmitted, and is the source of the majority of HIV infections throughout the world; HIV-2 is largely confined to West Africa.

[20][21] Kinshasa, in the Democratic Republic of Congo, has the greatest genetic diversity of HIV-1 so far discovered, suggesting that the virus has been there longer than anywhere else.