Bonobo ape Kanzi creates flint tools to prise open logs{video @ link}

[xchrom]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/blog/2012/aug/22/bonobo-kanzi-flint-tools-logs

A species of ape has been observed in captivity making and using flint tools. Kanzi, a 30-year-old male bonobo (previously known as pygmy chimpanzees) has already mastered sign language.

After some training in flint knapping, he created and used the tools to break apart logs and dig out concealed food – the first time this level of technological sophistication in tool use has been observed in non-humans.

Dr Eviatar Nevo and his colleagues at the University of Haifa, Israel, observed Kanzi using a total of 156 tools to break into the logs to get at the food. The experiment replicated conditions that chimps would have found in the wild and mimics scenarios facing early humans who used tools to break apart bones to get at the bone marrow.

The authors write in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences: "To accomplish these activities, [Kanzi] produced and used a wider variety of tool types than hitherto reported, with more complex uses, which formed wear patterns very similar to those produced by early [humans]." They speculate that the potential for tool use existed in the common ancestor of chimps and humans.

[mysuzuki2]

1. I've read some of the primary literature about this.

It is worth pointing out that Kanzi did not learn to do this on his own. He was shown how to flake stone and use the resulting flakes by humans. Wild chimps have been seen using stone hammers and anvils to break open nuts but not to flake. Still, it is interesting that this behavior is within their cognitive abilities.