The reality of nature and the wild is quite terrifying.
If Sir David Attenborough documentaries have taught us anything it's that animals can be ruthless. And although sometimes it can be tough to watch, it's enthralling, so we can't take our eyes off it. It's probably down to his soft voice.
A video which is currently proving popular is of a group of chimpanzees in Africa 'torturing' and eating one of their own. Be warned, Sir Dave's voice won't be here to save you from the gruesome nature.
Apparently there are only nine cases of chimps savaging their own, but the killing of those from other tribes is fairly common.
A West African chimpanzee named Foudouko, who was once the leader of this specific tribe, returned and was expecting to make a comeback.
Credit: Professor Jill Pruetz/Fongoli Savanna Chimpanzee Project
The chimp was kicked out of the group years ago and had to live alone for years. New Scientist reported that he was initially accepted back into the group, but his efforts to become the alpha male again were thwarted when other chimps didn't like it.
"[There were] attacks by multiple chimpanzees on his dead body, most frequently by a young adult male and an older female," authors wrote in a paper published to the International Journal of Primatology.
Lead author of the study Professor Jill Pruetz, who is also the director of the Fongoli Savanna Chimpanzee Project, said that the mauling largely came from the mother of the two brothers who are now the alpha and beta males of the group.
Warning: Graphic Images
Credit: Professor Jill Pruetz/Fongoli Savanna Chimpanzee Project
"The female that cannibalized the body the most, she's the mother of the top two high-ranking males. Her sons were the only ones that really didn't attack the body aggressively," said Professor Pruetz. "It was striking."
According to RT, the researchers were woken by the loud screams of the chimps, before stumbling upon the mutilated body of the cannibalised Foudouko.
Apparently he was found with a large gash on his back, cracked ribs, a ripped anus, and was bleeding heavily from a bite on his right foot.
Cannibalism is not so rare among primates and other animal groups, but is fairly rare when it comes to humans.
Cases are fairly scarce, but those that do exist are terrifying and there's yet to be a definitive understanding of why people revert to cannibalism.
Psychology Today reports that cutting up the human flesh is often sexually arousing. Removing the meat, peeling it and then having their way with it is enough to induce orgasms, according to cannibals, because the euphoria of being in control makes them feel so powerful.
"People who have engaged in this act report feelings of euphoria or get a 'high' by performing the action to completion," Karen Hylen, the primary therapist at Summit Malibu Treatment Centre in California, told Huffington Post. "These individuals have psychopathic tendencies and are generally not psychotic. They know exactly what they are doing."
Apparently, the first time someone kills and then eats a victim is pretty much a case-by-case thing. It may be down to childhood traumas, or it could be through curiosity but, according to Psychology Today, most of the time cannibals are isolated and resentful - loners.
Because they are alone, and are bitter about having no companions, they eat their victims to have a control over someone's life, and then they're always with them; never alone.
Karen Hylen claims that the first incident is usually some kind of twisted fantasy. However, after a bit of 'suck it and see', large amounts of dopamine are released in the brain, almost acting like a drug.
"The pleasure centre of the brain becomes activated," according to Hylen, and then when you have that feeling that can only be created by that one thing, you crave it more.
All aspects of being a cannibal; hunting, killing, removing the skin and then eating, become part of the addiction. As Hylen explains it is: "just as a cocaine addict becomes addicted to the process of cutting up lines before they ingest the drug itself."
There has been many opinions documented as to what human flesh tastes like, with most people reporting different tastes, yet all of them suggesting that it tastes nice.
Arthur Shawcross, who reportedly killed up to 11 people in 1998, some of which he ate, said that the meat tasted similar to pork. Armin Meiwes, a German man who killed and ate a willing victim he found on the internet, agreed with the notion that it tastes like pork, although he said it's slightly saltier and a bit more bitter.
Jefferey Dahmer, notorious for taking the lives of 17 lads between 1978 and 1991, claimed that the meat tasted like a filet mignon, or 'the king of steaks' as food connoisseurs will tell you. Similarly, William Seabrook, a reporter with the New York Times who also wrote travel books, said that the cut of human flesh he was given by the Guere tribe tasted like veal.
Weirdly, there are contrasting reports about Seabrook's cannibal activities. In his book Jungle Ways, he claims that he simply joined with the Guere tribe's rituals. Another story says that this never happened, and the reporter actually convinced a hospital intern to sneak him part of a fresh corpse, and he simply made up that he ate part of a human with the tribe.
I sincerely hope that this hasn't put you off pork, steak or chicken for life. I also hope that it hasn't left you contemplating tasting human, because that's definitely not the point.
There are no specific laws regarding cannibalism, per se, but obviously killing someone in order to eat them is murder so, y'know.
Featured Image Credit: Professor Jill Pruetz/Fongoli Savanna Chimpanzee Project