Hunting and meat-eating by chimpanzees have long been attracting researchers’ attention. Although chimpanzees consume various vertebrate species, the frequency of meat-eating and prey species differ among populations and groups. Here, we present the first documented case of chimpanzees consuming Lord Derby's anomalure in the Kalinzu forest, Uganda. Despite anomalure species inhabit some long-term field sites of chimpanzee, reports of chimpanzees consuming anomalures are rare, with only one previous case documented in Outamba–Kilimi National Park, Sierra Leone. In the current case, three males consumed the meat and their meat-eating patterns closely resemble those of chimpanzees at this site when consuming their usual prey. Obtaining further observations of these rare events may contribute to gaining a more comprehensive understanding of chimpanzee hunting and feeding culture.

Meat eating is pervasive across chimpanzee populations in Africa, with red colobus monkey (Piliocolobus spp.) being the most common prey (Boesch & Boesch 1989; Stanford et al. 1994a; Watts et al. 2012, Hosaka 2015) if sympatric in the same habitat. Besides colobus monkeys, chimpanzees consume a variety of other primates, including olive and yellow baboons (Papio spp.) and bushbabies (Galago spp.). In the forest habitats of western Tanzania chimpanzees have been reported to consume numerous different mammalian species: 18 at Mahale Mountains National Park (Uehara 1997; Hosaka 2015) and eight at Gombe National Park, whilst in the miombo woodland dominated Ugalla Region no direct observations have been recorded to date (Table 1). In West Africa, chimpanzees from Tai Forest, Ivory Coast consume eight different mammal species, all primates (Boesch & Boesch 1989). Wherever chimpanzees consume meat, it is almost always via hunting, as they rarely scavenge (Watts 2008).