Female Chimps Hunt With Tools

The females make spears out of tree branches to jab at their favourite prey, a small primate known as a bush baby, while they sleep in cavities in trees.

According toDr. Jill Pruetz, a Professor in the Department of Anthropology at Iowa State University this behaviour is unique to this chimp group, and she attributes this to cultural differences between these chimps and others who live in different environments.Females at Fongoli are allowed to hunt without the fear of their prey being stolen by males as generally happens in other chimp groups. The fact that females at Fongoli have learned to use tools in this way is indicative of the great diversity in chimp behaviour.

Related Links

-Paper in the Royal Society Open Science
-Iowa State University release
-New York Times story
-Smithsonian Magazine story
- Discovery News story