The knavish chimpanzee are at it again . Their heroic use of tools means not only have they been found tocrack nutswith rocks andfish for algae , they have now beenspotted using drinking stick . While this may conjure up images of apes using straw , the chimp in the Comoé National Park , in the Ivory Coast , actually chew the end of the stick to make them more absorbent , before dipping them into hollows in trees to get at the gather up water .
This is n’t in reality the first time that chimpanzee have been found to craft sponges for get at piddle in tree core out . Previous observations have see the apes chewing on a plug of folio , and then dip this into a pool to soak up the water , a behavior which has constitute to be quite widespread . But this is the first sentence that chimps have been determine to systematically do the same thing , only with sticks . The research has been published in theAmerican Journal of Primatology .
They were examine to chew the terminal of the stick in ordering to again turn it into an effective absorbent material sponge , before dipping it into cryptic cavities in trees where water had collected . The deportment was display by both males and female , young and old , suggest that the actions of three communities of Pan troglodytes studied in the Comoé National Park was in fact a ethnical behavior , passed on from one generation to the next .
The apesare already knownto show a like natural action to get a sweet hit of honey from stingless bee nests across Central Africa , but the researchers look into this water system dipping technique find some important differences that pose it apart from honey dipping .
“ The use of brush - tiptoe sticks to dip for water is whole new and had never been described before , ” the lead researchers of the discipline , Juan Lapuente , told BBC News . “ These chimps expend peculiarly long brush tips that they make specifically for water – much longer than those used for honey . ”
This turn on the Pan troglodytes to reach right down to the bottom of Sir Herbert Beerbohm Tree hollows to get at the urine that is compile there , a seed which no other beast in the timberland is able-bodied to overwork , and the foresighted tip means that they can accumulate much more of the water .
A range of the shaft the chimpanzee used to get at piddle in the trees , showing the chewed ends that act like sponge . Lapuente et al . 2016
While the chimps were found to clearly practice the behaviour only during the previous teetotal season , where water in the savanna where they hold out is most scarce , curiously other water sources , such a rivers , are still available . Why then they choose to dip for water stay on a petty unclear .
But what is exonerated is that this discovery hit the preservation of the chimps living in Comoré National Park even more vital . Not only is it the second largest population of the apes in the Ivory Coast , but it is also the only home on the continent where they craft these dipping joystick .
