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

[UrbScotty]

1. Not the one in the White House (nt)

[Up2Late]

2. That's pretty cool.

I had heard about Chimps going on Monkey hunts, but the video I saw they didn't use any tools.

This is new.

<>

[Bonobo]

3. Remarkable.

[Hekate]

4. I see by your screen name that you affiliate with our more peacable cousins...

...the ones who make love, not war. ;-)

Hekate

[intaglio]

5. For a fraction of a second I wondered why chimps would be so cruel

as to use Britney against their fellow apes :silly:

[iam]

6. This is what I've been saying for years

about people who left Africa a million years ago. The environment changed and so did the people. Humans had to adapt, to invent new technology to cope with the new environmental pressures. That's why humans have evolved into different races with some creating different and more advanced technologies than other races.

[progressoid]

7. A K&R for our ingenious cousins.

[Neurotica]

8. My favorite part of this story -- the females are the innovators...

According to the article in the Washington Post "the landmark observation also supports...that females...tend to be the innovators and creative problem solvers in primate culture."

The religious right must be going crazy -- chimpanzees making weapons and females being the primary innovators!

I'm going to be looking for their explanation of this story later today...just for laughs.

[PassingFair]

9. They'll have to re-design all the natural history dioramas.

ABOUT *UCKING TIME!

[asthmaticeog]

10. I, for one, WELCOME our new chimp overlords.

</obligatory>

[SayWhatYo]

11. Video of it... I think..

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2007/02/070222-chimp-video.html

[frogmarch]

15. Thanks

The video didn't show the spear thrust, but it did show the chimp eating the dead bush baby. Poor little thing.

[VegasWolf]

12. Okay, who has let the transgenic chimps out of the lab again? nt

[LanternWaste]

13. What was left out of the article is telling indeed...

What was left out of the article is telling indeed...

"When asked why he decided to attack with the spear, the chimp replied, "those damned gazelles have been secretly building WMD's. There's no doubt in our mind that they'll be using them on us. Our lead chimp tells us that they've also made attack drones out of bison dung and straw that could conceivably fly across the ocean and land in our very own back yards. We want to throw spears at them over there before we have to throw spears at them here. Those gazelle are crafty, you know. Sure, we know it's not all the gazelle's who are involved in this, but...well, collateral damage and all that."

That's all deep, inside info told to me by the 'gorilla my dreams'

[bamacrat]

14. this should help the debate over evolution, we are just way ahead of the chimps.