Chimps hunt bush babies with spears

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Chimps hunt bush babies with spears
mongabay.com
February 22, 2007

Researchers have observed wild chimpanzees in Senegal hunting bush babies with spears, according to a paper published in the March 6 edition of the journal Current Biology. The study is the first to report primates using tools for hunting other vertebrates.

Anthropologists Jill Pruetz and Paco Bertolani documented 22 cases of chimps "fashioning tools to use in hunting smaller primates in cavities of hollow branches or tree trunks" around their research site in Fongoli, Senegal.

"We came upon the discovery quite unexpectedly," said Pruetz, Assistant Professor of Anthropology at Iowa State University. "There were hints that this behavior might occur, but it was one time at a different site. Then I talked to my project manager (Bertolani) and he told me that he saw a female hunt with tools. When he looked through original data that was collected, we realized he had other evidence and observations of them probably doing the same thing. While in Senegal for the spring semester, I saw about 13 different hunting bouts. So it really is habitual."

Pruetz and Bertolani say that the apes jabbed sticks into tree hollows to spear bush babies as prey. The researchers note that both males and females participate in tool-assisted hunting.

Chimp in Uganda, photo by R. Butler

"It's classic in primates that when there is a new innovation, particularly in terms of tool use, the younger generations pick it up very quickly. The last ones to pick up are adults, mainly the males," Pruetz said. "This is because immatures learn from the ones they are most affiliated with, their mothers."

The authors argue that the findings "support a theory that females might have played a role in the evolution of tool technology among the earliest humans," states a news release from Iowa State.

"The combination of hunting and tool use at Fongoli, behaviors long considered hallmarks of our own species, makes the population especially intriguing," the authors wrote. "The observation that individuals hunting with tools include females and immature chimpanzees suggests that we should rethink traditional explanations for the evolution of such behavior in our own lineage. Learning more about the unique behaviors of chimpanzees in such an environment, before they disappear, can provide important clues about the challenges facing our earliest ancestors."

NOTES:

The National Geographic Society helped fund the research.

Paco Bertolani, now a graduate student in the Department of Biological Anthropology at the University of Cambridge

This article uses quotes and information from an Iowa State release.

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