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How chimpanzee groups learn different skills

Chimpanzees are the only animals, other than humans, that learn certain cultural behaviours — such as grooming, hunting or how to crack open nuts — from those around them, according to a study. Culture is defined by scientists as a set of socially-learned behaviours that differ between populations. Because the behaviour is learned from a local group, individual populations might carry out the same task in different ways.

“Culture has long been considered to be not only unique to humans, but also responsible for making us qualitatively different from all other forms of life,” wrote researchers, led by Stephen Lycett of the University of Liverpool, in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. “In recent years, however, researchers studying chimpanzees have challenged this idea. Natural populations of chimpanzees have been found to vary greatly in their behaviour.”

Chimpanzees have demonstrated almost 40 different activities that seem to be learned and which differ between populations. Studies of chimpanzees in east and west Africa show that some use only stone tools to crack nuts open while others use both wooden and stone tools. — ©Guardian Newspapers Limited, 2007

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How chimpanzee groups learn different skills

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