While young children must be shown the highway code to cross roads safely , it seems chimpanzees have taught themselves . Researchers studying chimps in Uganda say the apes are having to adapt to cope with increasingly busy roads cutting across their territory . They found at a busy asphalted road through the Sebitoli area of Kibale National Park in Uganda , the chimps have learned to look both ways before crossing . Chimpanzees crossing a busy road in Kibale National Park in Uganda ( above ) have learned to look for traffic . Scientists discovered the chimps will also often run across roads , while dominant males will wait to ensure younger chimps cross safely . It is the first time chimpanzees have been seen to change their behaviour to adapt to busy roads . Chimpanzees appear to flavour their food with herbs , researchers have suggested . Dr Sabrina Krief , a lecturer at the National Museum of Natural History in Paris , and her colleagues have found that wild chimpanzees in Uganda eat three different types of leaf while consuming meat they had caught . They reason that if this was for medicinal purposes , different animals would eat different plants depending on their ailments . However , the animals in each group all tended to eat the same plants with their meat , suggesting they were eating them for flavour instead . Dr Krief and her team found that separate groups of chimpanzees at Budongo Forest Reserve and Kibale National Park ate plants while chewing meat . Marie Cibot , a biologist at the National Museum of Natural History in Paris , who led the work , said the spread of road infrastructure in Africa was posing a growing threat to wildlife in many countries . She said : 'Although the asphalted road represents a substantial threat to crossing animals , chimpanzees took into account this risk . 'More than 90 per cent of the individuals looked right and left before and while crossing . 'Chimpanzees crossed in small subgroups . Whole parties crossed more rapidly when chimpanzees were more numerous in the crossing groups . ' The researchers say the road in Sebitoli sees around 89 motor vehicles an hour racing down it at speeds of between 40mph and 60mph . The researchers said they saw several different primates killed on the roads in the past year . However , chimpanzees living in the surrounding forests appear to have learned about the danger it poses . They watched 122 chimps cross the road over the course of two and half years . They found most of the chimps looked for traffic before crossing and as they crossed . Adult chimps , like this one , tended to wait for younger chimps to cross and checked they got over safely . Females with young and injured adults tended to cross less frequently . Around 20 per cent of the chimps that crossed would turn to check on other members of the group to ensure they were crossing safely . They also tended to form small groups of between two to three chimpanzees that crossed at a time . Chimps have been noticed to cross in similar ways on other non-asphalted roads . However , on quieter roads , adults tend to lead the group in a similar way as they do when checking for predators rather than splitting up into smaller groups . The researchers , whose work is published in the American Journal of Primatology , have appealed for measures to help reduce the impact roads were having on wildlife . Miss Cibot , who worked on the study with Dr Sabrina Krief , a lecturer at the National Museum of Natural History in Paris and the Great Ape Conservation Project in Uganda , said bridges or underpasses could be provided to help keep chimps safe . The team are hoping to work with the Ugandan authorities to test new safety measures . Miss Cibot said : 'These observations are relevant for our understanding of adaptive behavior among chimpanzees in human-impacted habitats . 'Further investigations are needed to better evaluate the effects of busy roads on adolescent female dispersal and on their use of territories . 'Mitigation measures , like bridges , underpasses , reduced speed limits , speed-bumps , signposts , or police controls , should be established in this area . '
Chimps were observed crossing busy road in Kibale National Park , Uganda . Score: 6