Myth Busting: The Truth About Animals And Tools
http://www.npr.org/2011/12/23/143833929/myth-busting-the-truth-about-animals-and-tools?sc=fb&cc=fp
"A wasp uses a pebble as a hammer. An octopus carries around a coconut shell to hide in. A shrike impales its prey on a sharp thorn.
Those are just a few examples of animal tool use that appear in the new book Animal Tool Behavior by Robert W. Shumaker, Kristina R. Walkup and Benjamin B. Beck. The book updates an edition published in 1980 by Beck. And in the new version, the authors try to dispel a number of persistent myths about animals and tools.
Shumaker tells me about some of those myths during a walk around The Indianapolis Zoo, where he is vice president of life sciences. (He is also a member of the adjunct faculty at Indiana University.)
As we approach a female polar bear named Tundra, Shumaker says one myth he hopes to deflate is that tool use is limited to monkeys and apes. Polar bears offer a powerful rebuttal of that idea, he says. In zoos, they often throw objects with great force and accuracy. It's less clear whether this sort of tool use occurs in the wild. But there are anecdotal reports from early Arctic explorers of polar bears using projectiles to hunt."
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