Chimpanzees Act As 'Engineers', Use Physics To Choose Tools: Study

Chimpanzees act as engineers when making their tools, deliberately choosing plants that provide materials with more flexibility, a new study has claimed. A team of researchers from the University of Oxford, the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, the Jane Goodall Institute, the University of Algarve and the University of Porto closely analysed chimpanzees at the Gombe Stream National Park in Tanzania and observed that they used a form of instinctive engineering in their tool-making that mirrors that of human tool evolution.

The findings, published in the journal iScience, provide insights into the technical skills and engineering precision required by the champinazees to fashion such perishable tools -- an area that has largely remained unexplored in the study of human technological evolution.

"This is the first comprehensive evidence that wild chimpanzees select tool materials for termite fishing based on specific mechanical properties," said first author Alejandra Pascual-Garrido.

For the study, the researchers took a portable mechanical tester to measure how much force it took to bend plant materials used by the apes compared to plant materials that were available but never used. Results showed that plant species never used by chimpanzees were 175 percent more rigid than their preferred materials.

"It is highly possible that the structural and mechanical suitability of these plant species for termite fishing probes will have contributed to the ubiquity of their selection," the study highlighted.

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The study also noted that while technical skills may have been acquired through trial-and-error learning, social learning, such as stimulus enhancement or tool sharing within the community, also contributed to this behavior among apes.

Scientists concluded that chimpanzees may therefore possess a kind of "folk physics", an intuitive comprehension of material properties.

"This novel approach, which combines biomechanics with animal behavior, helps us better understand the cognitive processes behind chimpanzee tool construction and how they evaluate and select materials based on functional properties," said Mr Pascual-Garrido.

The study findings could have important implications for understanding how humans might have evolved their tool-using abilities that made them the leader of the food chain.