Chimpanzees have tool-making skills similar to human engineers

In the forests of Tanzania, chimpanzees have long been known to fish for termites using handmade tools crafted from local plants. But what makes this behavior even more fascinating is how carefully they seem to choose the materials for their tools.

New research now shows that these primates are not just grabbing any nearby stick to poke into a termite nest – they’re making smart choices based on how flexible and effective the material is.

This discovery comes from a collaborative effort between researchers at the University of Oxford’s School of Anthropology and Museum Ethnography, the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, the Jane Goodall Institute in Tanzania, the University of Algarve, the University of Porto in Portugal, and the University of Leipzig.

The study sheds light on the technical thinking behind chimpanzee tool use, a largely invisible part of primate evolutionary history.

Chimpanzees prefer flexible tools for fishing

To eat termites, chimpanzees must first catch them. The primates use thin plant probes to pull the insects carefully out of narrow, winding tunnels inside termite mounds.

The team proposed that flexible tools would work better in these tight spaces than rigid sticks. To test this, lead author Alejandra Pascual-Garrido brought a portable mechanical tester to Gombe Stream National Park. She measured the amount of force it took to bend different plant materials.

The results were striking. Plants that the chimpanzees actually used were much more flexible than those that were available but ignored.

On average, unused plants were 175 percent more rigid. Even among plants growing side-by-side near the termite mounds, the ones that were repeatedly used produced significantly more flexible tools.

“This is the first comprehensive evidence that wild chimpanzees select tool materials for termite fishing based on specific mechanical properties,” said Pascual-Garrido, who has been studying chimpanzee tool-making in Gombe for over ten years.

Shared preferences across Africa

Interestingly, the same plant species used by chimpanzees in Gombe such as Grewia – are also used by other chimpanzee populations living thousands of kilometers away.

This pattern suggests that the mechanical qualities of these plants are so useful that they’ve become common knowledge among different chimpanzee groups. It also hints that this knowledge might be deeply embedded in chimpanzee culture.

Their choices suggest a kind of natural logic. Chimpanzees may have what scientists call a “folk physics” – an intuitive understanding of which materials will get the job done.

Their knack for selecting the right plant isn’t just done by trial and error. It’s a skill. And it’s one that might reflect the kind of thinking our early human ancestors used when building their own tools.

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

New questions about chimpanzees

The research opens up more questions than it answers. How do young chimpanzees learn which materials to use? Do they copy their mothers? And do they apply the same rules when choosing tools for other jobs – like collecting ants or honey?

“This finding has important implications for understanding how humans might have evolved their remarkable tool using abilities,” explained Adam van Casteren from the Department of Human Origins at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology.

“While perishable materials like wood rarely survive in the archaeological record, the mechanical principles behind effective tool construction and use remain constant across species and time.”

These behaviors also raise questions about memory, experience, and even innovation in non-human primates.

Clues about early humans

Understanding how chimpanzees refine their techniques over time could reveal a primitive form of trial-and-error learning that mirrors early human problem-solving.

By studying chimpanzees and their preferences for certain types of materials, researchers hope to uncover clues about how early humans may have started crafting implements long before stone tools appeared in the archaeological record.

It’s a small but meaningful step toward understanding the roots of human intelligence – through the eyes, and hands, of our closest extant relatives.

The full study was published in the journal iScience.

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