Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-848d4c4894-pftt2 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-05-01T00:00:17.626Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

8 - An energetic model of foraging optimization: wild chimpanzee hammer selection for nut-cracking

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 November 2019

Christophe Boesch
Affiliation:
Max-Planck-Institut für Evolutionäre Anthropologie, Germany
Roman Wittig
Affiliation:
Max-Planck-Institut für Evolutionäre Anthropologie, Germany
Catherine Crockford
Affiliation:
Max-Planck-Institut für Evolutionäre Anthropologie, Germany
Linda Vigilant
Affiliation:
Max-Planck-Institut für Evolutionäre Anthropologie, Germany
Tobias Deschner
Affiliation:
Max-Planck-Institut für Evolutionäre Anthropologie, Germany
Fabian Leendertz
Affiliation:
Robert Koch-Institut, Germany
Get access

Summary

The chimpanzees of the Taï Forest, Côte d’Ivoire, crack highly nutritious Coula edulis nuts using anvils and hammers. While using tools to access encased food items provides obvious benefits, the energetic gain of tool-assisted foraging can be further increased by optimal selection of tools. Previous studies of animal tool selection often relied on implicit assumptions or theoretical arguments about how tool features would influence foraging efficiency, and comprehensive measures of actual efficiency are still missing. We used field observations of nut-cracking efficiency and previously published estimates of energetic costs to investigate the rate of net energy intake as a function of hammer weight and hammer material. While stones allowed for a generally more efficient performance, nut-cracking efficiency depended on an interaction of hammer weight and material. Relative performance of stones and wood varied according to the ripeness of the nuts. Chimpanzees’ tool selection tends to optimize nut-cracking in many respects. Nonetheless, we also observed a few mismatches between efficiency and selection, some of which may be explained on cognitive, motivational or cultural grounds.

Type
Chapter
Information
The Chimpanzees of the Taï Forest
40 Years of Research
, pp. 104 - 124
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2019

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Aiken, L. S., West, S. G. & Reno, R. R. (1991). Multiple Regression: Testing and Interpreting Interactions. New York: Sage.Google Scholar
Baayen, R. H. (2008). Analyzing Linguistic Data: A Practical Introduction to Statistics using R. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Barr, D. J., Levy, R., Scheepers, C. & Tily, H. J. (2013). Random effects structure for confirmatory hypothesis testing: Keep it maximal. Journal of Memory and Language, 68(3), 255278.Google Scholar
Bates, D., Maechler, M., Bolker, B. & Walker, S. (2014). lme4: Linear mixed-effects models using Eigen and S4. R package version, 1(7), 123.Google Scholar
Biro, D., Inoue-Nakamura, N., Tonooka, R., Yamakoshi, G., Sousa, C. & Matsuzawa, T. (2003). Cultural innovation and transmission of tool use in wild chimpanzees: evidence from field experiments. Animal Cognition, 6, 213223.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Boesch, C. (1991). Teaching among wild chimpanzees. Animal Behaviour, 41, 530532.https://dx.doi.org/10.1016/S0003–3472(05)80857–7Google Scholar
Boesch, C. & Boesch, H. (1981). Sex differences in the use of natural hammers by wild chimpanzees: A preliminary report. Journal of Human Evolution, 10, 585593.Google Scholar
Boesch, C. & Boesch, H. (1983). Optimisation of nut-cracking with natural hammers by wild chimpanzees. Behaviour, 83, 256286.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Boesch, C. & Boesch, H. (1984a). Mental map in wild chimpanzees: an analysis of hammer transports for nut cracking. Primates, 25(2), 160170.Google Scholar
Boesch, C. & Boesch, H. (1984b). Possible causes of sex differences in the use of natural hammers by wild chimpanzees. Journal of Human Evolution, 13, 415440.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Boesch, C. & Boesch-Achermann, H. (2000). The Chimpanzees of the Taï Forest: Behavioural Ecology and Evolution. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Boesch, C., Bombjaková, D., Boyette, A. & Meier, A. (2017). Technical intelligence and culture: Nut cracking in humans and chimpanzees. American Journal of Physical Anthropology, 163, 339355.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Boysen, S. T. & Berntson, G. G. (1995). Responses to quantity: Perceptual versus cognitive mechanisms in chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes). Journal of Experimental Psychology: Animal Behavior Processes, 21, 82.Google Scholar
Bril, B., Dietrich, G., Foucart, J., Fuwa, K. & Hirata, S. (2009). Tool use as a way to assess cognition: How do captive chimpanzees handle the weight of the hammer when cracking a nut? Animal Cognition, 12, 217235.Google Scholar
Bruhn, J. M. & Benedict, F. G. (1936). The respiratory metabolism of the chimpanzee. Proceedings of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, 71, 259326.Google Scholar
Byrne, R. W. (1997). The technical intelligence hypothesis: an additional evolutionary stimulus to intelligence. In Whiten, A. & Byrne, R. (eds.), Machiavellian Intelligence II (pp. 289–31). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Dobson, A. J. & Barnett, A. (2008). An Introduction to Generalized Linear Models. Boca Raton: CRC Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Field, A. (2013). Discovering Statistics using IBM SPSS Statistics. New York: Sage.Google Scholar
Fox, J. (2002). An R and S-Plus Companion to Applied Regression. New York: Sage.Google Scholar
Fragaszy, D. M., Eshchar, Y., Visalberghi, E., Resende, B., Laity, K. & Izar, P. (2017). Synchronized practice helps bearded capuchin monkeys learn to extend attention while learning a tradition. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 114, 77987805.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Fragaszy, D. M., Greenberg, R., Visalberghi, E., Ottoni, E. B., Izar, P. & Liu, Q. (2010). How wild bearded capuchin monkeys select stones and nuts to minimize the number of strikes per nut cracked. Animal Behaviour, 80, 205214.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Goodall, J. (1964). Tool-using and aimed throwing in a community of free-living chimpanzees. Nature, 201(4926), 12641266.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gumert, M. & Malaivijitnond, S. (2013). Long-tailed macaques select mass of stone tools according to food type. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B, 368 (1630). https://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rstb.2012.0413CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Günther, M. M. & Boesch, C. (1993). Energetic cost of nut cracking behaviour in wild chimpanzees. In Preuschoft, H. & Chivers, D. J. (eds.), Hands of Primates (pp. 109129). Vienna: Springer.Google Scholar
Harmand, S., Lewis, J. E., Feibel, C. S., Lepre, C. J., Prat, S., Lenoble, A., et al. (2015). 3.3-million-year-old stone tools from Lomekwi 3, West Turkana, Kenya. Nature, 521(7552), 310315.Google Scholar
Luncz, L.V. & Boesch, C. (2014). Tradition over trend: Neighboring chimpanzee communities maintain differences in cultural behavior despite frequent immigration of adult females. American Journal of Primatology, 76, 649657. https://dx.doi.org/10.1002/ajp.22259.Google Scholar
Luncz, L. V., Falotico, T., Pascual-Garrido, A., Corat, C., Mosley, H. & Haslam, M. (2016b). Wild capuchin monkeys adjust stone tools according to changing nut properties. Scientific Reports, 6, 33089.Google Scholar
Luncz, L. V., Mundry, R. & Boesch, C. (2012). Evidence for cultural differences between neighboring chimpanzee communities. Current Biology, 22, 922926.Google Scholar
Luncz, L. V., Proffitt, T., Kuhlik, L., Haslam, M. & Wittig, R. M. (2016a). Distance-decay effect in stone tool transport by wild chimpanzees. Proceedings of the Royal Society B, 283(1845).Google ScholarPubMed
Luncz, L. V., Sirianni, G., Mundry, R. & Boesch, C. (2018). Costly culture: differences in nut-cracking efficiency between wild chimpanzee groups. Animal Behaviour, 137, 6373.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Luncz, L. V., Wittig, R. M. & Boesch, C. (2015). Primate archaeology reveals cultural transmission in wild chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes verus). Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B, 370(1682), 20140348.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Mangalam, M. & Fragaszy, D. M. (2015). Wild bearded capuchin monkeys crack nuts dexterously. Current Biology, 25, 13341339.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Matsuzawa, T. (1985). Use of numbers by a chimpanzee. Nature, 315(6014), 5759.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Matsuzawa, T. (1996). Chimpanzee intelligence in nature and in captivity: isomorphism of symbol use and tool use. In McGrew, W. C., Marchant, L. F. & Nishida, T. (eds.), Great Ape Societies (pp. 196209). New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Mercader, J., Panger, M. & Boesch, C. (2002). Excavation of a chimpanzee stone tool site in the African rainforest. Science, 296(5572), 14521455.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Möbius, Y., Boesch, C., Koops, K., Matsuzawa, T. & Humle, T. (2008). Cultural differences in army ant predation by West African chimpanzees? A comparative study of microecological variables. Animal Behaviour, 76, 3745.Google Scholar
Navarrete, A. F., Reader, S. M., Street, S. E., Whalen, A. & Laland, K. N. (2016). The coevolution of innovation and technical intelligence in primates. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B, 371(1690).Google Scholar
Neufuss, J., Humle, T., Cremaschi, A. & Kivell, T. L. (2017). Nut-cracking behaviour in wild-born, rehabilitated bonobos (Pan paniscus): A comprehensive study of hand-preference, hand grips and efficiency. American Journal of Primatology, 79(2), 116.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Pandolf, K. B., Givoni, B. & Goldman, R. F. (1977). Predicting energy expenditure with loads while standing or walking very slowly. Journal of Applied Physiology, 43, 577581.Google Scholar
Quinn, G. P. & Keough, M. J. (2002). Experimental Design and Data Analysis for Biologists. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
R Core Team. (2014). R: A Language and Environment for Statistical Computing. Vienna: R Foundation for Statistical Computing.Google Scholar
Sanz, C. M., Call, J. & Boesch, C. (eds.). (2013). Tool Use in Animals: Cognition and Ecology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Schielzeth, H. (2010). Simple means to improve the interpretability of regression coefficients. Methods in Ecology and Evolution, 1, 103113.Google Scholar
Schielzeth, H. & Forstmeier, W. (2008). Conclusions beyond support: Overconfident estimates in mixed models. Behavioral Ecology, 20, 416420.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Sirianni, G., Mundry, R. & Boesch, C. (2015). When to choose which tool: Multidimensional and conditional selection of nut cracking hammers in wild chimpanzees. Animal Behaviour, 100, 152165.Google Scholar
Sirianni, G., Wittig, R., Gratton, P., Mundry, R., Schüler, A. & Boesch, C. (2018). Do chimpanzees anticipate object’s weight? A field experiment on the kinematics of hammer-lifting movements in the nut cracking Taï chimpanzees. Animal Cognition, 21, 109. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10071-017–1144–0Google Scholar
Soiret, S. P., Kadjo, B., Assi, B. D. & Kouassi, P. K. (2015). New observations in nut cracking behavior of chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes verus) in Djouroutou, Taï National Park. International Journal of Innovation and Applied Studies, 11, 15.Google Scholar
Spagnoletti, N., Visalberghi, E., Ottoni, E., Izar, P. & Fragaszy, D. (2011). Stone tool use by adult wild bearded capuchin monkeys (Cebus libidinosus). Frequency, efficiency and tool selectivity. Journal of Human Evolution, 61, 97107.Google Scholar
Spitzer, H., Hettinger, T. & Kaminsky, G. (1982). Tafeln für den Energieumsatz bei körperlicher Arbeit. Beuth.Google Scholar
Sugiyama, Y. & Koman, J. (1979). Tool-using and -making behavior in wild chimpanzees at Bossou, Guinea. Primates, 20, 513524.Google Scholar
Tan, A. W. Y. (2017). From play to proficiency: The ontogeny of stone tool-use in coastal-foraging long-tailed macaques (Macaca fascicularis) from a comparative perception-action perspective. Journal of Comparative Psychology, 131, 89114.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Tebbich, S., Taborsky, M., Fessl, B. & Dvorak, M. (2002). The ecology of tool use in the woodpecker finch (Cactospiza pallida). Ecology Letters, 5, 656664.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Visalberghi, E., Addessi, E., Truppa, V., Spagnoletti, N., Ottoni, E., Izar, P., et al. (2009). Selection of effective stone tools by wild bearded capuchin monkeys. Current Biology, 19, 213217.Google Scholar
Visalberghi, E., Sabbatini, G., Spagnoletti, N., Andrade, F. R. D. D., Ottoni, E., Izar, P., et al. (2008). Physical properties of palm fruits processed with tools by wild bearded capuchins (Cebus libidinosus). American Journal of Primatology, 70, 884891.Google Scholar
Visalberghi, E., Sirianni, G., Fragaszy, D. & Boesch, C. (2015). Percussive tool use by Taï Western chimpanzees and Fazenda Boa Vista bearded capuchin monkeys: a comparison. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B, 370(1682), 20140351.Google Scholar

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure coreplatform@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×