Coronavirus-infected chimps could be silent super spreaders, according to worrying research which details potentially devastating consequences for the world's endangered great apes.
The deepening pandemic may spell ruin for populations of man's nearest relative, the chimpanzee, while gorillas and orangutangs are also at risk of seeing their numbers decimated.
That is because great apes share 98% of human DNA and have long been deemed susceptible to human viruses, such as the common cold.
And the fear is humans will pass on the virus to chimps – which will have a devastating knock-on effect. In 2016 chimps in the Taï National Park in Africa's Ivory Coast were found to have contacted a variant of the coronavirus.