AnimalsMonkeys vary in their ability to crack hard shells
SDA
23.12.2024 - 17:00
Individual chimpanzees vary in their skill at using tools. This could also have implications for evolution.
Keystone-SDA
23.12.2024, 17:00
SDA
Chimpanzees in a village in Guinea used a small stone hammer and anvil to crack the hard shells of oil palm fruit kernels in the experiment, as observed by a team led by Sophie Berdugo from the University of Oxford. The results were published on Tuesday in the journal "Nature Human Behavior". Older chimpanzees require more strokes and time than younger ones. The researchers suspect that the fact that they have less strength and need more breaks could play a role in this.
On the other hand, older chimpanzees slipped away from the object less often during the cracking tests and they changed tools less frequently. This could be due to years of experience with their cracking method, the team writes. This is because chimpanzees learned how to crack from experienced conspecifics until they were around ten or eleven years old. After that, their skills improved as they practiced on their own.
Significance in evolution?
In the forests of the village of Bossou in Guinea, the chimpanzees are an isolated community. A special feature of the study is its long time frame. The researchers analyzed 832 hours of videos with almost 4000 cracking actions. They observed 21 chimpanzees between the ages of 6 and 60. The researchers provided the chimpanzees with material from the region for the experiment.
The researchers suspect that the different use of tools in a group could also have an impact on evolution. Possible deficits in the supply of nutrients could cause some individuals to die earlier.