Hunting chimps may change view of human evolution

[mcpeepants]

Hunting chimps may change view of human evolution

By Maggie Fox, Health and Science Editor 2 hours, 41 minutes ago

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Chimpanzees have been seen using spears to hunt bush babies, U.S. researchers said on Thursday in a study that demonstrates a whole new level of tool use and planning by our closest living relatives.
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Perhaps even more intriguing, it was only the females who fashioned and used the wooden spears, Jill Pruetz and Paco Bertolani of Iowa State University reported.

Bertolani saw an adolescent female chimp use a spear to stab a bush baby as it slept in a tree hollow, pull it out and eat it.

Pruetz and Bertolani, now at Cambridge University in Britain, had been watching the Fongoli community of savanna-dwelling chimpanzees in southeastern Senegal.

The chimps apparently had to invent new ways to gather food because they live in an unusual area for their species, the researchers report in the journal Current Biology.

"This is just an ********** way of having to make up for a pretty harsh environment," Pruetz said in a telephone interview. The chimps must come down from trees to gather food and rest in dry caves during the hot season.

"It is similar to what we say about early hominids that lived maybe 6 million years ago and were basically the precursors to humans."

Chimpanzees are genetically the closest living relatives to human beings, sharing more than 98 percent of our DNA. Scientists believe the precursors to chimps and humans split off from a common ancestor about 7 million years ago.

Chimps are known to use tools to crack open nuts and fish for termites. Some birds use tools, as do other animals such as gorillas, orangutans and even naked mole rats.

But the sophisticated use of a tool to hunt with had never been seen.

Pruetz thought it was a fluke when Bertolani saw the adolescent female hunt and kill the bush baby, a tiny nocturnal primate.

But then she saw almost the same thing. "I saw the behavior over the course of 19 days almost daily," she said.

PLANNING AND FORESIGHT

The chimps choose a branch, strip it of leaves and twigs, trim it down to a stable size and then chew the ends to a point. Then they use it to stab into holes where bush babies might be sleeping.

It is not a highly successful method of hunting. They only ever saw one chimpanzee succeed in getting a bush baby once. The apes mostly eat fruit, bark and legumes.

Part of the problem is this group of chimps is shy of humans, and the females, who seem to do most of this type of hunting, are especially wary. "I am willing to bet the females do it even more than we have seen," she said.

Pruetz noted that male chimps never used the spears. She believes the males use their greater strength and size to grab food and kill prey more easily, so the females must come up with other methods.

"That to me was just as intriguing if not even more so," Pruetz said.

The spear-hunting occurred when the group was foraging together, again unchimplike behavior that might produce more competition between males and females, she said.

Maybe females invented weapons for hunting, Pruetz said.

"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," she concluded in her paper.

"The multiple steps taken by Fongoli chimpanzees in making tools to dispatch mammalian prey involve the kind of foresight and intellectual complexity that most likely typified early human relatives."

[DTBusta]

yes animals are amazing, somewhere down the line these chimps learned it from a skilled chimp. I know that chimps frequently teach their babies to use sticks to get insects out of crevices in trees and the forest floor, so maybe it evolved from this behavior.(G.W. should we consider these guys potential terrorists?)

[SVTMuscle*]

should be inetersting to see where this goes in the future.

[singern]

This is just too cool, is there a video or documentary on this?

[Red Ketchup]

I am amazed that this is more than just using tools (like using a branch to get ants out of an anthill), they are actually making and using weapons!

I can't wait to see where this leads!

Red

[singern]

they are actually making and using weapons!

I can't wait to see where this leads!

Red

Haven't you seen Planet of the Apes, just wait a few millennia.....

[BITTAPART2]

very cool, iwas just watching CNN and they touched on this. IMO if you dont believe in evolution on some level you are ignorant. my father in law is a die hard baptist and told me that there is absolutly no such thing as evolution whatsoever. he also believes the noahs ark story LOL

[KAEW44]

Evolution takes a very very long time to happen, so if these chimps have just now reached the spear stage then they are still about a few million years behind before you see a skyscraper in the jungle and chimps trading in stockmarket. The early evolution took the longest, however when they hit electricity the development is lighting fast from there.

[Kale]

I am almost scared to ask what a "Bush Baby" is !!

[Kale]

Google to the rescue

[DTBusta]

I am almost scared to ask what a "Bush Baby" is !!

Kale, this is Colbert, or"Daily show" material, you made me just laugh my as* off!

BITT- You know I'm sure youre baptist uncles has also told you ....Rottweilers were created to watch over the devils dominion.lol







These chimps are violent. I never understood if evolution and evolution by itself happened, how these animals which are primates were left so primative, but look at them showing us whats up! Lets see.. are we greeting them as liberators or are the "Bush Babies"!? Monkey's Mission Accomplished....those "Bush Babies" will be extinct in no time.


Actually Bush babies are also primates, and are exremely rare, it will be sad to see them go if this spearing Bush babies kicks off to such a great copy rate! I guess evolutionists...this is just part of evolution, let them take out an entire species , the strong sha'll thrive...

[crusher707]

need help with this websit how do you tell if someone is online?