Monday, November 28, 2011

New article on food and tool "sharing" in Fongoli chimps


Our new publication is now available online at the journal Primates. Iowa State University Ph.D. student in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology (Anthropology, home department), Stacy Lindshield, and I published an article on 'Plant Food and Tool Transfer in Savanna Chimpanzees'. There is a link to the paper from the news article that Iowa State University put out, below.

We note that the frequency of non-meat transfer appears high at Fongoli relative to the sharing of wild plants and other foods and tools by chimpanzees elsewhere, and we talk about why that may be. (We'll eventually examine meat-sharing as well, in a separate paper). We also point out that we think this is a tendency for West African chimps to fall closer to bonobos in terms of this and other behaviors along a continuum that includes all Pan species and subspecies.

In large part, adult males allowed adult females to take resources from them. Adult male Karamoko, pictured in the photos above (Courtesy National Geographic) was one of the adult males that shared termite-fishing tools with females.

http://www.news.iastate.edu/news/2011/nov/sharingchimps

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