Kakama, at age 21, is a handsome young male believed by most researchers to be the up-and-coming alpha male.

He moved quickly up the hierarchy from 9th in 2000 to 4th in 2003.

He is known for being very bold in his interactions with both chimpanzees and humans.  More than a few researchers have been frightened by Kakama as he displayed towards them, only to run by or smack the tree next to them.

We know that most of these displays towards humans are merely bluffs, so we stand bravely or occasionally shout something rude at him so that he will turn around and display at someone of his own species.

Kakama - the future alpha of Kanyawara? © Jean-Michel Krief

Fortunately, Kakama does not know what we know, which is that a chimpanzee of his size is approximately 6 times as strong as an adult human.

As a young male, however, Kakama was not so tough.

Back in 1993, researchers frequently saw him carrying around a small log like an infant.

Richard Wrangham writes in Demonic Males: Apes and the Origins of Human Violence:

'My intuition suggested a possibility that I was reluctant, as a professionally skeptical scientist, to accept on the basis of a single observation: that I had just watched a young male chimpanzee invent and then play with a doll in possible anticipation of his mother giving birth.

'A doll! The concept was novel enough that I simply filed away my notes without saying much about it to anyone else, and left Uganda the following week.'

Four months later field assistants see Kakama carry a log again. After he lelft it behind they had collected it and labled it as 'Kakama's Toy Baby'.

Wrangham writes on:

'Both sets of observers thought of Kakama's logs as dolls merely from the way he carried them, but the clearest sign that Kakama treated the logs as imaginary babies was the time he made a nest and put the log into the nest on its own.

'Kakama was exactly the sort of youngster who might be expected to want a play partner most.

'He was an only child with a playful personality, his mother was relatively antisocial, and she was now pregnant.

'Could he have known that his mother was pregnant and therefore looked forward to a sibling so intensely that he created one in his mind?'

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