Sex differences in learning in chimpanzees.

Published

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

Pubmed Central 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