Chimps Found Making Own Weapons to Hunt for Food 410
Pojut writes "The Washington Post has an article involving chimps and weapons. Apparently, there have been direct observations of chimps in the west African savannah modifying sticks to create spears. They then use these spears to kill small mammals and eat them. It is the first time that an animal other than a human has been directly observed in crafting a weapon for the purpose of hunting or killing."
Don't make a monkey out of me. (Score:1, Insightful)
But from where... (Score:5, Insightful)
I would like to know if this is a learned behavior from an outside source or if this is simply something they have discovered on their own.
Semantics (Score:3, Insightful)
I wonder if they came up with it... (Score:3, Insightful)
I wonder if they came up with the idea themselves or may have learned about it by imitating humans? Or maybe they were even taught by one... I remember reading some studies where some researched taught a chimp to use sign language and then they observed that chimp spontaneously teaching it to other chimps. The first thing that came to my mind was that if they ever released it on the wild and it survived one day we may encounter some tribe of chimps with their own sing language and culture.
Also, I just saw a documentary by the BBC about the rainforests, and in the last bit they were talking about huge organized groups of chimps somewhere in Uganda. It was pretty impressive to watch them march in formation and stalk their enemies in territorial fights. They looked pretty much like tribal wars to me. Just remember your own schoolyard days, we are really not so far removed.
Baboons (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Semantics (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:killing animals making tools? (Score:5, Insightful)
Congratulations. Dehumanization is the first important step down the path to genocide. The jews in Nazi Germany weren't "human" either. Carry on.
Re:Baboons (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:But from where... (Score:5, Insightful)
Even if it is some form of imitation, doesn't that indicate some grasp of the encompassed cause and effect? Some glimmer of said foresight?
Otters use flat stones to crack open shellfish. Some apes use sticks to fish for termites. Is this really such a stretch?
Re:Yawn... wake me up (Score:1, Insightful)
when we have evidence for WMD's.
We have as much evidence as we did in Iraq.
Comment removed (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:But from where... (Score:2, Insightful)
Making a weapon requires foresight into the possible effects they may have. I seriously doubt chimps have such cognitive skills.
Why?
Re:But from where... (Score:5, Insightful)
" It is the first time that an animal other than a human has been directly observed in crafting a weapon for the purpose of hunting or killing."
Spiders construct webs for hunting and killing. No intelligence required.
Re:It's not just the chimps. (Score:3, Insightful)
So, a chimp uses a slightly modified stick to get hold of, kill, and eat something that it otherwise would not be able to get. You're referring to this tool as a weapon. Fair enough.
Now, a crow finds a raw material, slightly modified it, and uses it to obtain, kill and eat something it otherwise would not be able to get. How is this different?
Re:But from where... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:But from where... (Score:3, Insightful)
I would say that's more akin to moneys trying to kill a victim by flinging poo at them. The stick is a weapon crafted from thier environment, not secreted from them.
Re:But from where... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:But from where... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:But from where... (Score:2, Insightful)
Until you see Dinopis guatemalensis the Net Casting Spider [earthlife.net] which fashions a net, hangs by a silk with the net held in its legs and waits for supper to happen by.
As for chimps using spears, I know they are capable of using teamwork to catch, kill and eat small monkeys and they occasionally use sticks as clubs in threat gestures, beating the ground. Don't know if they have learned to kill other animals with clubs and I think spears are something this particular group of animals learned from outside their society. Just my two cents worth.
Re:But from where... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:"Hammer and anvil"? (Score:3, Insightful)
Not necessarily true - the anvil group can be composed of risk-seeking individuals who are willing to fight an equally-matched enemy, while the hammer group is composed of risk-averse individuals who aren't willing to join the fight unless they have a good chance of winning. The anvil group attacks first and in most cases gets bogged down; the hammer group attacks later if it's clear that joining the fight will tip the balance. No need for communication or hierarchy (although I'm not denying that chimps have both).
If both sides have hammer groups waiting in the background, the situation is similar to an iterated game of chicken [wikipedia.org]: each hammer group wants to delay joining the fight for as long as possible, allowing the anvil group to wear down the enemy, but neither hammer group wants the other to join the fight first, which would lead to a defeat. (Joining the fight corresponds to driving straight in the chicken game, and holding back corresponds to swerving; if both players swerve, the game is repeated.)
Re:But from where... (Score:2, Insightful)
Applying that criterion leads to solipism, as there's only one being whose thoughs I have access too. The rest of you all may be behaving by instinct or mimicry, but I know I'm thinking.
The way to distinguish intelligent tool-making and use from instinctual behaviors like web spinning is by the flexibility and adaptability of the behavior. Can it be altered through learning? When circumstances change, does the organism repeat unsuccessful behaviors or does it alter them to work?
Re:But from where... (Score:3, Insightful)
And another thing: about this notion of "mimicry" being somehow bad. Mimicry is one of the few things that sets us apart. In terms of basic cognitive tasks, chimps often perform better than young human children. On some tasks, they keep up with children 5-6 years old. However, there are two things that chimps are notoriously bad about: learning from example and working in teams. They can do it; they just don't do it well.
Human kids mimic. That's how they learn. In can even be a disadvantage in cases. Take a group of young human children and show them how to get a toy, but put in a lot of extra, pointless steps. Do the same with a group of chimps. The human children will tend to do all of the pointless steps. The chimps will often omit them.
Chimps do have some evidence of culture. They can teach, and have been observed passing down the ability to make tools to their young. Captive chimps have been observed trying to teach sign language. Learning from example is just very difficult for them, so they don't pass much cultural information. They learn much better through simple reinforcement. Give a chimp a puzzle that has multiple solutions which contains a piece of food inside. Have it practice opening it up over and over until it gets good at it. Now have that chimp solve its puzzle in front of another chimp. Then give that other chimp the puzzle. More often than not, the "observer" chimp will start from scratch in terms of trying to figure out the puzzle.
One animal that I'm ever so impressed with (as an owner of one) is parrots. Parrots learn well from example, but are still good problem solvers. My DYH amazon, at less than five months old, solved a puzzle in a way I never would have guessed he would. I hung a bungee cord with a treat on the end from a diagonal support rope, knowing that the cord would be too hard for him to climb down. Next to the treat, I hung a toy that he doesn't like to stand on -- his "cladder". Beyond that, I hung a toy that he did like to stand on, his "boing". The goal was to get him to climb on the cladder to get to the treat. However, I kept finding the bungee wrapped around the cladder and stuck in place, with the treat gone. Figuring my partner was trying to make it easier for him, I'd reset it, only to have it end up in the same way. So I watched (and filmed it). He'd climb up the boing, onto the support rope, past the cladder, and up to the top where the bungee connects. Then he'd grab onto the bungee with a combination of his beak and claws, and inch himself back down the support rope while holding onto it. When he got back to his boing, he'd loop the bungee around the cladder and then eat the treat at his leisure.
He's an incredibly fast learner, too. He once spent half an hour trying to figure out how to open the clasp on one of my shirts. Ever since, it only takes him about ten seconds. The same thing happened with clothespins. I've also given him some simple verbal tasks that I've given to dogs before, and he excelled at them. Dogs often react based on the tone of your voice and your body language, not the verbal context. Try saying "stupid" with the same voice and body language that you say "come", or inserting their name in the middle of a sentence without changing your tone. More often then not, in my experience, they respond to the tone and body language, not the context. That's not to say that they can't; my younger sister has a dog who does Agility, and certainly context is involved there.
Without any special training, however, I've found that my amazon responds to content. I'll put my finger in front of him and in a command