![]() ![]() The opportunity for comparisons with our own evolution has become a run against time as the human infestation of the planet threatens wild primate populations worldwide. Furthermore, the difference in behaviour from group to group highlights the extraordinary cultural diversity among our closest living relatives. It is now clear that with every new wild chimpanzee community that becomes used to humans, scientists observe new and unexpected behaviour – some of which challenges our understanding of evolution and what it means to be human. Indeed, a careful study of the species may uncover many more examples of this future planning. If chimpanzees can indeed anticipate a future state (I will be hungry) as being different than their current one (I am not hungry), then a more nuanced interpretation of their cognition is required. Such “ future-oriented cognition” has long been considered uniquely human, but experimental evidence suggests other species, including apes and some birds, may possess it as well. Among their observations, the researchers describe another novel behaviour, the storage of one of the tortoise shells in the fork of a tree that is later retrieved and consumed by the same male chimpanzee.Ĭhimpanzee eating part of a small antelope.Credit: Camille Giuliano/Anne-Sophie Crunchant/GMERC, Author provided The new findings also reveal something even more remarkable. Previously, scientists had looked at fractured turtle remains and argued the animals may have been an important part of early human diets, but the Loango chimpanzees provide us a glimpse of the role this meat may have played for our early ancestors. To this select list we can now add tortoise shell. We have long assumed that reconstructing hominin meat-eating behaviour was dependent on our finding fossilised stone tools and cut marks left on processed animal bones. Our work in this emerging discipline relies on material artefacts – shattered tortoise shells, for instance – to reconstruct contemporary primate behaviour in the same way we do for early hominins.Īlso read: Did the World’s Most Famous Gorilla Ever ‘Talk’ Like Humans Did? The evidence left behind is therefore of interest to us primate archaeologists who use archaeological techniques to understand the physical remains of non-human primates. ![]() This newly discovered percussive behaviour in chimpanzees leaves a significant damage pattern on the tortoise shell and potentially damages the anvil on which it was cracked. The reward is a tasty tortoise, helpfully served in a bowl-shaped shell. For people like us, who also research chimpanzee behaviour, the discovery is particularly exciting because the animals obtain the tortoise meat by pounding the shell repeatedly onto a tree trunk until it cracks. These chimpanzees regularly catch, kill and consume tortoises that have been grabbed from the forest floor. And, writing in the journal Scientific Reports, a group of researchers say they have already observed behaviour not previously seen in chimpanzees. These chimps have recently become used to the presence of humans, which means scientists can now see them act exactly as they would in nature. That has all changed, thanks to a group of wild chimpanzees in Loango National Park along the Atlantic coast of Gabon in Central Africa. ![]() But until now scientists had never observed them eating reptiles. So chimpanzees are rightly known as resourceful eaters. One group in Senegal even hunts tiny, mouse-like primates known as bushbabies by using spear-like tools to first probe the holes the bushbabies hide in during the day, before reaching in to grab their prey. Monkeys, in fact, are typically the most frequent item on the menu, and in some cases chimpanzees can eat so many monkeys they threaten to wipe out entire populations. All chimpanzees eat animals at least sometimes, including anything from ants and termites to bushpigs and even baboons. ![]()
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