English
 
Help Privacy Policy Disclaimer
  Advanced SearchBrowse

Item

ITEM ACTIONSEXPORT

Released

Journal Article

Acquisition of a complex extractive technique by the immature chimpanzees of Loango National Park, Gabon

MPS-Authors
/persons/resource/persons186257

Estienne,  Vittoria Luisa       
Department of Primatology, Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Max Planck Society;

/persons/resource/persons72862

Mundry,  Roger
Department of Primatology, Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Max Planck Society;
Department of Developmental and Comparative Psychology, Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Max Planck Society;

/persons/resource/persons72641

Deschner,  Tobias       
Chimpanzees, Department of Primatology, Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Max Planck Society;
Endocrinology Laboratory, Department of Primatology, Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Max Planck Society;

/persons/resource/persons72593

Boesch,  Christophe       
Chimpanzees, Department of Primatology, Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Max Planck Society;

External Resource
No external resources are shared
Fulltext (restricted access)
There are currently no full texts shared for your IP range.
Fulltext (public)
There are no public fulltexts stored in PuRe
Supplementary Material (public)
There is no public supplementary material available
Citation

Estienne, V. L., Robira, B., Mundry, R., Deschner, T., & Boesch, C. (2019). Acquisition of a complex extractive technique by the immature chimpanzees of Loango National Park, Gabon. Animal Behaviour, 147, 61-76. doi:10.1016/j.anbehav.2018.11.002.


Cite as: https://hdl.handle.net/21.11116/0000-0002-B341-A
Abstract
The relative importance of individual and social learning in acquiring complex technological skills in animals is debated, especially the influence of processes allowing high copying fidelity (namely, imitation and teaching). We investigated how immature wild chimpanzees, Pan troglodytes troglodytes, acquired the technique for extracting underground honey. This technique is interesting because (1) adults perform exploration, pounding and perforation in nonrandom but highly flexible action sequences to locate underground bee nests, (2) they have individual preferences for how to perforate the ground and (3) the nests are deeply buried and concealed, making success difficult to achieve. We analysed the behaviour of 16 immatures recorded by camera traps at 50 sites, and tested the influence of individual attributes (namely, age and sex) and maternal behaviour; we also tested whether mothers provided learning opportunities for their offspring. We found that, as they aged, immatures of both sexes progressively matched adults' behaviour in action sequences and observed their social models more continuously. Immature males used the most common grip type used by adults for perforating (namely, the coordinated use of hands and feet) progressively more as they aged, but no effect of maternal preferences was detected. Thus, the adult technique was probably acquired via a combination of physical maturation (i.e. increased body strength and motor coordination) and observational learning, although individual learning could not be completely ruled out. Finally, the proportion of time mothers spent inactive at bee nest sites was high when they were accompanied by young daughters and decreased as daughters aged, while the opposite pattern was found for sons. Mothers may thus stimulate learning by immatures by adjusting their behaviour according to their offspring's sex and age. Overall, we showed that immature chimpanzees acquired this complex tool use behaviour via a combination of social and nonsocial learning processes, including potential maternal stimulation.