Chimpanzees may have the ability to plan further into the future than previously thought, according to an article in the online version of Current Biology.
The study by Matthias Osvath, a primatologist at Lund University in Sweden, was based on the case report of Santino, a 21-year-old chimpanzee living in on a small island surrounded by a water moat at the Furuvik Zoo in Sweden. For several years, Santino would calmly collect and hoard stones and chunks of concrete in various locations on his island. He would sometimes fashion crude missiles out of the concrete chunks. Later on, Santino would hurl the stones at unsuspecting zoo visitors during "agitated dominance displays," according to the paper. Osvath argued that because Santino was relaxed while gathering the stones, it is unlikely that his current state of mind influenced his desire to gather weapons. Rather, the paper...
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Image: barnoid/flickr |
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