Chimps use spears to hunt other primates

[Bhaisahab]

Chimps use spears to hunt other primates
Maggie Fox
Reuters
Friday, 23 February 2007

Chimpanzees have been seen using spears to hunt bushbabies, US researchers say in a study that demonstrates a whole new level of tool use and planning by our closest living relatives.

Perhaps even more intriguing, it was only the females who made and used the wooden spears to hunt the tiny nocturnal primates, report Assistant Professor Jill Pruetz and Paco Bertolani of Iowa State University.

Bertolani saw an adolescent female chimp use a spear to stab a bushbaby as it slept in a tree hollow, pull it out and eat it.

Pruetz and Bertolani, now at the University of Cambridge, had been watching the Fongoli community of savanna-dwelling chimpanzees in southeastern Senegal.

The chimps apparently had to invent new ways to gather food because they live in an unusual area for their species, the researchers report online in the journal Current Biology.

"This is just an innovative way of having to make up for a pretty harsh environment," Pruetz says.

CONTINUED AT http://abc.net.au/science/news/stories/2007/1854965.htm