Chimps Develop "Specialised Tool Kits" To Catch Army Ants

A research team from the Goualougo Triangle Ape Project, headed by Crickette Sanz, have provided evidence that chimp tool-making and use to dip for several species of ant is more sophisticated than previously thought. Chimps generally use a long twig to actually dip for the ants - the ants climb up the twig and are thus transported to the chimp's mouth. But, where they have to break into the nest, they use a different twig tool to penetrate the nest and make an opening. Specifically, the number of tools used per site was an average of 3.37 and just over one third of recovered tool sets contained a mixture of nest perforating and ant dipping tools. There was evidence that the nest perforation tools were selectively used by the chimps to open the nests of the more aggressive epigaeic ants - where wholesale smashing of the nests would release swarms of highly aggressive biting ants driven with retaliatory intent. Using a perforation tool is clearly a more delicate technique to control ant emergence and collateral damage to self. However this report is tarnished, in my eyes, by a couple of highly anthropomorphic observations attributed to the researchers. The first is that by delicately perforating the nests, rather than smashing them, the chimps are practicing "sustainable harvesting". This begs the assumption that chimps have a deep forward planning knowledge which allows them to manage resources long into the future - which is not sustained by the mainstream of primatological research. The authors also assert that the chimps practice recycling by re-using tools that have been left by other individuals. I hope that, in the original paper, they word it to say that the effect is to recycle - rather than the intent is to recycle!