chimp and pygmy chimpanzee – our close aliveness relatives – both know in standardised environment , and yet they show incredibly divers behavioral differences . Chimps , for example , are fertile tool exploiter , whereas pygmy chimpanzee are not . former researchhas shown that young chimpanzee spend more time playing with objects from an early age , and that this primes them to produce more complex tool use behavior as they senesce . Butnew researchhas found that it might not be as simple as more play lead to more tool use .
“ In numerous mammalian species , sex differences in immatures foreshadow sex differences in the behaviour of adults , a phenomenon known as ' preparation',”explainsDr . Kathelijne Koops , who co - author the study release inPLoS One . And yet even though young male chimps spend more time encounter with objects when compare to new females , which one would gestate to in the end go to more advance object manipulation subsequently in life , it ’s actually the female person who are more avid and competent tool drug user when they reach adulthood .
so as to work out what it is that ca-ca these two animals so behaviorally different , the research worker spent several calendar month studying a community of interests of wild chimpanzees in Uganda and one of wild bonobos in the Democratic Republic of Congo . They find that while unripe male chimps spent a peck of time simply play with objects – not inevitably putz – the female chimps were far more selective with how they interact with these objects .
Interestingly , this is a latitude of what ’s been observed in humans . “ The finding that in unripened chimp , like humans , object - tailor dramatic play is bias towards males may reflect a divvy up evolutionary history for this trait dating back to our last rough-cut root , ” write the investigator , who are fromCambridge , ZurichandKyoto .
The younger female show low-toned rates of object use , but rather than simply playing with any physical object they come across , they expose a expectant diversity of manipulation behavior – such as biting , breaking , and carrying objects . So it seems that it ’s not necessarily the clock time the ape drop manage object , but more the type of manipulations the young copycat execute that prime them for peter economic consumption as adults .
The researcher go on to advise that the plain similarity between human kid and green Pan troglodytes with regards to male - bias could mean that object maneuver in males has some other function in develop motor attainment for male person - specific behaviour , such as ascendence displays . “ It seems that not all object manipulation in immatures prepares for subsistence tool use . It is important to take the types of handling into consideration,”saysKoops .
Considering just how closely touch on chimps , bonobos and humans are , Koops hopes that understanding how species and sexual activity differ in “ preparation ” for tool use among chimp and bonobos might throw off some light on sexuality difference observed among human child .
