CAMBRIDGE, ENGLAND—Kathelijne Koops of the University of Cambridge and colleagues from Kyoto University tracked wild chimpanzees and bonobos in Uganda and Congo and recorded their tool use, the surrounding environmental conditions, and social time. They also observed the young apes when manipulating objects, and whether or not those objects were deployed as tools. The researchers found that bonobos had similar access to as many tools and the opportunities to use them as the chimpanzees, but the bonobos rarely used tools, and never used them to forage for food. Immature chimpanzees were also observed playing with objects more frequently, and with more objects. “Chimpanzees are object-oriented, in a way that bonobos are not,” Koops said in a press release. “Given the close evolutionary relationship between these two species and humans, insights into the tool use difference between chimpanzees and bonobos can help us identify the conditions that drove the evolution of human technology. Our findings suggest that an innate predisposition, or intrinsic motivation, to manipulate objects was likely also selected for in the hominin lineage and played a key role in the evolution of technology in our own lineage,” she explained. For more, go to "Ancient Chimpanzee Tool Use."
