Aaron Sandel

Aaron Sandel is a primatologist at the University of Texas at Austin. He is newsworthy due to his research on chimpanzee behavior, specifically the observation and documentation of coordinated attacks between different groups of chimpanzees within the Ngogo community in Uganda's Kibale National Park. Sandel's research, published in Science, details how members of different neighborhoods within the larger Ngogo group began treating each other as strangers, leading to what has been described as a 'civil war' among the chimpanzees. This research is significant because it provides insights into the complex social dynamics and potentially violent interactions within chimpanzee communities, offering a parallel to human conflict and social behavior. His work contributes to a broader understanding of primate behavior and evolution.