Sex differences in learning in chimpanzees.
Journal Article (Journal Article)
The wild chimpanzees in Gombe National Park, Tanzania, fish for termites with flexible tools that they make out of vegetation, inserting them into the termite mound and then extracting and eating the termites that cling to the tool. Tools may be used in different ways by different chimpanzee communities according to the local chimpanzee culture. Here we describe the results of a four-year longitudinal field study in which we investigated how this cultural behaviour is learned by the community's offspring. We find that there are distinct sex-based differences, akin to those found in human children, in the way in which young chimpanzees develop their termite-fishing skills.
Full Text
Duke Authors
Cited Authors
- Lonsdorf, EV; Eberly, LE; Pusey, AE
Published Date
- April 2004
Published In
Volume / Issue
- 428 / 6984
Start / End Page
- 715 - 716
PubMed ID
- 15085121
Electronic International Standard Serial Number (EISSN)
- 1476-4687
International Standard Serial Number (ISSN)
- 0028-0836
Digital Object Identifier (DOI)
- 10.1038/428715a
Language
- eng