Archived Abstracts
Tool use for food acquisition in a wild mountain gorilla (Gorilla beringei beringei).
Authors: Jean-Felix Kinani and Dawn Zimmerman
Tool use in Great apes has been a topic of great interest due to the genetic similarity and the close evolutionary relationship between humans and nonhuman primates. Free-ranging chimpanzees and orangutans have demonstrated habitual and complex tool using behaviors. However, there exist few documented instances of tool using in wild gorillas. Lisanga, a juvenile mountain gorilla female, was observed to select a piece of wood off the ground that was approximately 20 cm long and 2 cm wide at one end, and 1 cm wide at the other. The piece of wood was a freshly broken branch, thought to be from a tree found two meters from an ant hole. She inserted the stick into the hole and then withdrew the stick, licking the ants off of the stick. After licking the ants off the stick, Lisanga ran away shaking her left hand to remove the still biting ants. This is the first time tool use has been witnessed in a wild mountain gorilla despite the intensive monitoring of this subspecies. The described tool use event is characterized as idiosyncratic and can, in part, be explained by Lisanga’s curious nature as she is known to have an investigative personality. Our observations add to the growing literature on great ape tool use and social learning. This new observation illustrates that wild mountain gorillas use tools.
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