Archived Abstracts
Extraction of honey from underground bee nests by central African chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes troglodytes) in Loango National Park, Gabon: techniques and individual differences.
Authors: Vittoria Estienne, Colleen Stephens, and Christophe Boesch
Great apes are outstanding in their tool use skills. Given their phylogenetic closeness to humans, they represent a crucial model for understanding the evolution of the cognitive abilities associated with complex tool use behaviors in our lineage. In this study we investigated the technique used by wild chimpanzees to extract honey from the underground nests of stingless bees. This technique is particularly interesting because these nests are highly inconspicuous, the resource is deeply interred and its location underground is unpredictable. We looked at the degree of complexity and flexibility of this technique and found that chimpanzees use very long and variable sequences of exploratory and extractive actions to reach the underground nests. Nevertheless, these sequences were structured in a non-random way. Additionally, individuals showed preferences for how they performed one specific action, that is, how they perforated the nest. Chimpanzees were able to infer the location of an out-of-sight resource by using indirect cues and reach it by performing a highly complex tool use techniquse. Our study emphasizes the role that exploiting insects and their products had in shaping the technological abilities and associated cognitive traits in human evolution, and highlights the occurrence of significant differences among individuals in multiple aspects of this tool use technique.
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