New Chimp Culture Evidence

January 5th, 2010

We all know that we are a bunch of apes that have evolved into humans. Everyone knows this because one day a chimp had a human baby and then we all realized that we evolved, and that evolution existed. Har har. If you thought I was being serious, shame on you.

Anyways, we know that chimps are quite intelligent, and we have observed them doing quite a bit of human activities over the years. From writing novels to using their opposable thumb to switch on their Kohler faucet.

A new study of chimpanzees living in the wild adds to evidence that our closest primate relatives have cultural differences, too. The study, reported online on October 22nd in Current Biology, shows that neighboring chimpanzee populations in Uganda use different tools to solve a novel problem: extracting honey trapped within a fallen log.

Kibale Forest chimpanzees use sticks to get at the honey, whereas Budongo Forest chimpanzees rely on leaf sponges — absorbent wedges that they make out of chewed leaves.

“The most reasonable explanation for this difference in tool use was that chimpanzees resorted to preexisting cultural knowledge in trying to solve the novel task,” said Klaus Zuberbühler of the University of St Andrews in Scotland. “Culture, in other words, helped them in dealing with a novel problem.”

“Culture” in this sense refers to a population-specific set of behaviors acquired through social learning, such as imitation, Zuberbühler explained. That’s in contrast to an animal or human learning something on his or her own through trial and error, without taking into account what others around them do, or behaviors that are “hard-wired” and require no learning at all. more