A Teaching Moment for Chimpanzees

New research, published October 11 in the journal Scientific Reports, shares the first documented evidence of wild chimpanzee mothers teaching their offspring to use tools.

The study is based on research conducted in partnership with the Lincoln Park Zoo’s Lester E. Fisher Center for the Study and Conservation of Apes, the Wildlife Conservation Society, Washington University in St. Louis, the Max Planck Institute and Franklin and Marshall College in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. Its authors include Dave Morgan, Ph.D., Fisher Center Research Fellow and Co-Director of the Goualougo Triangle Ape Project (GTAP), and Crickette Sanz, Ph.D., a Fisher Center adjunct scientist and associate professor of biological anthropology in Arts & Sciences at Washington University.

Motion-triggered cameras at at termite mounds in the Nouabalé-Ndoki National Park in the Republic of Congo (where the GTAP field site is located) capture examples of wild chimpanzee mothers providing offspring with specialized termite-gathering probes fashioned from particular plant species.

Read more about the study.

Watch a video about the research.