Thursday, April 16, 2015

Researchers observe female chimps making spears

Chuck Bednar for redOrbit.com - @BednarChuck Female chimpanzees create spears in order to stab their prey, suggesting that the ability to craft these kinds of weapons originated with early primates and that ancient humans may have hunted in a similar manner, according to a new Royal Society Open Science study. The authors of that paper observed chimps living in Fongoli, Senegal as they took living tree branches, removed all of the leaves and side branches, then sharpened the edges of the tools with their teeth to create an effective weapon that was about 30 inches long. Weapons made it possible for female chimps to hunt Lead author Jill Pruetz, a professor in the Iowa State University Department of Anthropology, and her colleagues told Discovery News that they watched as one of the chimps would sneak up on a bushbaby, then stab it to death as the nocturnal creature slept in a nearby tree cavity. They also found that the female adult chimps were more likely to make and use spears than the adult male ones, with the latter relying more upon their size and strength to hunt.



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