A comparison of bonobo and chimpanzee tool use: evidence for a female bias in the Pan lineage

doi:10.1016/j.anbehav.2010.09.005

Animal Behaviour

Volume 80, Issue 6, December 2010, Pages 1023-1033

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.anbehav.2010.09.005 Get rights and content

Chimpanzees, Pan troglodytes, are the most sophisticated tool-users among all nonhuman primates. From an evolutionary perspective, it is therefore puzzling that the tool use behaviour of their closest living primate relative, the bonobo, Pan paniscus, has been described as particularly poor. However, only a small number of bonobo groups have been studied in the wild and only over comparably short periods. Here, we show that captive bonobos and chimpanzees are equally diverse tool-users in most contexts. Our observations illustrate that tool use in bonobos can be highly complex and no different from what has been described for chimpanzees. The only major difference in the chimpanzee and bonobo data was that bonobos of all age–sex classes used tools in a play context, a possible manifestation of their neotenous nature. We also found that female bonobos displayed a larger range of tool use behaviours than males, a pattern previously described for chimpanzees but not for other great apes. Our results are consistent with the hypothesis that the female-biased tool use evolved prior to the split between bonobos and chimpanzees.

Section snippets

Subjects

We collected data from five bonobo groups, housed at San Diego Zoo and San Diego Wild Animal Park, U.S.A., Lola ya Bonobo, DRC, and Twycross Zoo, U.K. (two groups). Group sizes ranged from five to 22. Age class categories were derived from Goodall (1986) simplified to four stages: infants (0–5 years), juveniles (childhood to early adolescence), subadults (late adolescence) and adults. Individuals were considered adults if they were either fully grown or had already given birth. All bonobos were

Species Differences

Following Beck (1980), we discriminated 63 different tool use behaviours in 14 contexts, each containing one to nine actions (mean ± SD = 2.7 ± 2.4; Table 1). Direct comparisons between chimpanzees and bonobos, both in the wild and in captivity, were possible over 52 behaviours. Eleven tool use behaviours had to be excluded because they involved contexts that were not available to captive individuals (e.g. hunting, rainstorms) or because they were not spontaneous, but artificially elicited as part of

Chimpanzee and Bonobo Tool Use

The tool use behaviour of nonhuman primates is relevant for theories of human evolution (Washburn, 1960, Parker and Gibson, 1979). The natural tool use behaviour of our closest living relatives, the chimpanzees and bonobos, plays a key role in this comparison, but no systematic comparison has been conducted so far. Previous research has shown that, in terms of cognitive and physical abilities to use tools, bonobos and chimpanzees do not differ in relevant ways (Takeshita and Walraven, 1996,

Acknowledgments

We are grateful to the San Diego Zoo and Wild Animal Park and the Twycross Zoo for enabling us to carry out this study. At San Diego, we thank all the Zoo and Park bonobo caretakers and staff, especially the head keepers Mike Bates and Donna Lundy, as well as Kim Livingstone and Michelle Stancer for their assistance. At Twycross, we thank the Research Coordinator Jackie Hooley as well as the bonobo keepers Donna Smithson, Emma Swaddle and Liz Cubberley. We thank the Ministry of Research and the

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A comparison of bonobo and chimpanzee tool use: evidence for a female bias in the Pan lineage

Section snippets

Subjects

Species Differences

Chimpanzee and Bonobo Tool Use

Acknowledgments

Current Biology

Current Biology

Current Biology

Animal Behaviour

Animal Behaviour

Animal Behaviour

Current Biology

Journal of Archaeological Science

Current Biology

Observational study of behavior: sampling methods

Behaviour

Animal Tool Use

Tool use and tool making in wild chimpanzees

Folia Primatologica

First observation of tool use in wild gorillas

PLoS Biology

The nature and uses of immaturity

American Psychologist

Wild chimpanzees produce group-specific calls: a case for vocal learning?

Ethology

Intra- and interpopulational differences in orangutan (Pongo pygmaeus) activity and diet: implications for the invention of tool use

American Journal of Physical Anthropology

Ladder use and clubbing by a bonobo (Pan paniscus) in Apenheul Primate Park

Zoo Biology

The Chimpanzees of Gombe: Patterns of Behavior

The knowns and unknowns of chimpanzee culture

Communicative and Integrative Biology

What do bonobos (Pan paniscus) understand about physical contact?

Journal of Comparative Psychology

Great apes’ (Pan troglodytes, Pan paniscus, Gorilla gorilla, Pongo pygmaeus) understanding of tool functional properties after limited experience

Journal of Comparative Psychology

Culture in bonobos? Between-species and within-species variation in behavior

Current Anthropology

Tool-using behavior in wild Pan paniscus: social and ecological considerations

Imaginary play in chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes)

Human Evolution

Object manipulation and tool-use in captive pygmy chimpanzee (Pan paniscus)

Journal of Human Evolution

The use of leafy twigs for rain cover by the pygmy chimpanzees of Wamba

Primates

The behaviour of free-living chimpanzees in the Gombe Stream Reserve

Animal Behaviour Monographs

Comprehension of cause–effect relations in a tool-using task by chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes)

Journal of Comparative Psychology

Sex differences in learning in chimpanzees

Nature

Evolutionary implications of sex differences in chimpanzee predation and tool use

Why is ape tool use so confusing?