An October 2025 social media post correctly reported that researchers documented an apparent effort by a troop of chimpanzees in the Congo Basin to domesticate more than 30 penguins.
In October 2025, a rumor spread about a curious display of intelligence from humanity's closest animal relatives. According to social media posts, researchers documented chimpanzees in the Congo or "Kango" Basin attempting to domesticate penguins. The posts included a pair of blurry, low-resolution images that appeared to show some chimpanzees carrying penguins through a jungle path and onto a sandy beach.
The widely shared story first appeared in a post by the Facebook page StoryTime (archived). The post read:
Chimpanzees Attempt to Domesticate Penguins in the Kango Basin. In a bizarre twist of nature, researchers in the Congo Basin have documented a troop of chimpanzees seemingly trying to domesticate a group of penguins. Photographs show chimps leaving the shoreline with penguins clutched in their arms, while game trail cameras later capture the same chimps arriving back at their forested home, still carrying the birds.So far, more than 30 penguins have been "relocated." To the surprise of scientists, none appear distressed. In fact, the penguins are being fed fruit, groomed, and even petted by their new hosts. Even more astonishing is the role young chimps have taken in this odd cross-species experiment. They've been spotted chasing down any strays and escorting them back to the group, almost like shepherds in training."All 30 penguins are accounted for, and the troop seems intent on keeping them together," one researcher noted. "It's unlike anything we've ever seen." Experts are now closely monitoring the situation. #animals #wholesome
The story also popped up elsewhere on Facebook (archived) and X (archived). Many Snopes readers sent us questions or searched the site asking if the story really happened.
The story was fabricated and so we've rated the claim false. Not only was there no evidence to support the allegedly documented behavior, but it also involved two animals unlikely to have much interaction with each other at all because they don't usually exist in the same place in nature.
A Google search for "chimpanzees domesticating penguins" returned no results on the subject except for the social media posts spreading the rumor. Searches for "chimpanzee congo penguin" and "chimpanzees domesticating penguins" on Google Scholar, which searches scholarly journals and books for results, also found no results relating to this story. Considering the story claimed the researchers "documented" this behavior, it is very unlikely that no credible news reports, press releases or research papers regarding the discovery would be available, if the story were true.
While there is no place called the "Kango Basin," the Congo Basin is a real region in central Africa. It generally refers to the tropical rainforest around the Congo River.
The natural range of at least one subpopulation of chimpanzees includes a coastal area of the Congo Basin, according to the website of the New England Primate Conservancy. The African penguin, which is the penguin most like those seen in the images, lives in southwest Africa, along the coasts of Africa and Namibia, well south of the Congo Basin. The website of the Maryland Zoo says the species "is found nowhere else in the world."
Reverse image searches of two images that appeared in collage form in the social media posts returned nothing other than the posts themselves. While the images were of too low quality to definitively make any conclusions as to their authenticity, certain details in the images hinted that they were artificially manipulated or generated using artificial intelligence (AI) tools.
For example, text at the bottom of the larger of the two images appeared to show that the temperature at the time the image was taken was 35 degrees Fahrenheit, which is far too cold for the climate of a tropical rainforest, especially one in which the trees are still thick with green leaves.
Other evidence included the appearance of the penguins the chimpanzees held in both images, especially the chimpanzee at the back in the larger image. While difficult to tell with certainty due to the low quality of the image, the penguins appeared to be malformed, and the penguin the chimpanzee in the back held appeared to be largely beneath the chimpanzee's arms, with its weight seemingly unsupported.
The StoryTime Facebook page has a history of posting fabricated stories of unusual animal behaviors framed as scientific discoveries. Snopes has fact-checked multiple StoryTime tales about mountain lions and other animals.
By Emery Winter, snopes/fact-check/
