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The spread of a novel behavior in wild chimpanzees: New insights into the ape cultural mind

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posted on 2023-07-26, 14:40 authored by Thibaud Gruber, Timothée Poisot, Klaus Zuberbühler, William J. E. Hoppitt, Catherine Hobaiter
For years, the animal culture debate has been dominated by the puzzling absence of direct evidence for social transmission of behavioral innovations in the flagship species of animal culture, the common chimpanzee. Although social learning of novel behaviors has been documented in captivity, critics argue that these findings lack ecological validity and therefore may not be relevant for understanding the evolution of culture. For the wild, it is possible that group-specific behavioral differences emerge because group members respond individually to unspecified environmental differences, rather than learning from each other. In a recent paper, we used social network analyses in wild chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes schweinfurthii) to provide direct evidence for social transmission of a behavioral innovation, moss-sponging, to extract water from a tree hole. Here, we discuss the implications of our findings and how our new methodological approach could help future studies of social learning and culture in wild apes.

History

Refereed

  • Yes

Volume

8

Issue number

2

Page range

e1017164

Publication title

Communicative and Integrative Biology

ISSN

1942-0889

Publisher

Taylor & Francis

File version

  • Published version

Language

  • eng

Legacy posted date

2019-07-03

Legacy creation date

2019-07-03

Legacy Faculty/School/Department

ARCHIVED Faculty of Science & Technology (until September 2018)

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