Wild Gorillas Spotted Using Tools

[Dalton]

That darn Evolution thing strikes again

Wild gorillas spotted using tools for first time
Scientists astounded to see apes make their way with walking sticks
Updated: 8:18 p.m. ET Sept. 29, 2005


WASHINGTON - Two female gorillas have been photographed using sticks as tools to get through swampy areas, the first time the apes have been seen doing so in the wild, researchers reported on Thursday.

“This is a truly astounding discovery,” said Thomas Breuer of the Wildlife Conservation Society and the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany, who led the study.

The findings can help shed light on how human beings came to use tools, and also broaden the understanding of how animals use them, the researchers said.

“Although there are reports of tool use by captive gorillas, including object throwing and use of tools in feeding, there has been to our knowledge no reported case of tool use in by wild gorillas, despite decades of field research,” they wrote in their report, published in the Public Library of Science Biology, an online journal.

Tools often used in captivity
All great apes use tools in captivity, but scientists have worried that this does not necessarily reflect natural behavior, just something copied from humans.

“Tool usage in wild apes provides us with valuable insights into the evolution of our own species and the abilities of other species. Seeing it for the first time in gorillas is important on many different levels.”

They describe the two instances in the northern rain forests of the Republic of Congo.

“We first observed an adult female gorilla using a branch as a walking stick to test water deepness and to aid in her attempt to cross a pool of water at Mbeli Bai, a swampy forest clearing in northern Congo,” Breuer and his international colleagues wrote.

In the second case, they saw another pull up a dead shrub.

“She forcefully pushed it into the ground with both hands and held the tool for support with her left hand over her head for two minutes while dredging food with the other hand,” they wrote. “Efi then took the trunk with both hands and placed it on the swampy ground in front of her, crossed bipedally on this self-made bridge, and walked quadrupedally towards the middle of the clearing.”

Chimps and crows use tools, too
Chimpanzees, closely related bonobos and other apes have also been seen using tools in the wild — for instance, to catch termites. And other animals such as crows have been seen using them. But never wild gorillas.

“Information on tool use and factors favoring tool use in wild apes helps us to understand its importance in the evolution of our own species,” Breuer and his colleagues, Mireille Ndoundou-Hockemba and Vicki Fishlock, wrote.

The gorillas live in a protected area, and the researchers said this was key.

“These protected areas are not only important for the conservation of species they contain, they also hold the key to comparing our own development as a species with our next of kin,” Breuer said in a statement.

[Sharpshooter]

Holy crap, that's amazing. It could almost sort of be like that very first time man took up something to aid in his survival, all over again.

This brings up a question, though - what would happen if this was actually the first stage in the development of a strongly-sentient species? Suppose that, five million years from now, Humans are still around, but an evolutionary offshoot of the primate has reached a point in mental ability and knowledge similar to that of, say, humans at 3000-1500 BC?

(Don't get in depth with this idea - if any interest is shown, I'll spring for a new thread)

[Surlethe]

(Don't get in depth with this idea - if any interest is shown, I'll spring for a new thread)

Spring for it. I'm willing to discuss.

Basically, I'm not sure any other evolutionary changes could bring about strong sentience in species even remotely related to man, because in doing so, such species would become competitors with humans, and humans would wipe them out.

[wautd]

Pfft... More evolutionist gibberish and therefore can be discounted as mere garbage.

Next.


ahum... I mean: pretty cool

[weemadando]

*gibbering fanboy*

OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG David Brin PREDICTED THIS! HE DID HE DID HE DID! DAVID BRIN SAID THAT THIS WOULD HAPPEN! UPLIFT! WOOO!

*/gibbering fanboy*

I hate David Brin fans. Not as much as I hate David Brin's writing though.

[NoXion]

What's so god-awfully terrible about David Brin?

[NoXion]

Ghetto Edit: I'm not asking because I disagree, I'm genuinely interested.

[CJvR]

Dolphins have also been observed using tools IIRC, excluding the hit-dolphins that supposedly escaped from NO.

[GrandMasterTerwynn]

(Don't get in depth with this idea - if any interest is shown, I'll spring for a new thread)

Spring for it. I'm willing to discuss.

Basically, I'm not sure any other evolutionary changes could bring about strong sentience in species even remotely related to man, because in doing so, such species would become competitors with humans, and humans would wipe them out.

It's not likely that the other great apes will evolve towards sapience anyway. The principal reason being that they've gone and specialized. That is to say they've become specialized to a rather particular sort of habitat, and they exploit their selected niches very well. This is why their brains are no larger than those of our australopithecine ancestors, in spite of six million years of evolutionary development.

Now that their forest habitats are vanishing, this specialization has come back to bite them in the ass. (Coupled with their low birthrates, and the fact that their immediate relatives happen to find them tasty and have evolved the ability to build and operate AK-47s.)

Currently, there aren't many species who are well-placed to make a serious attempt to compete with us in our niche. Bears might do it, but there has a to be strong selection pressure towards a highly social bear who can tolerate the presence of other bears in close quarters (ironically, we're supplying just this sort of pressure, though it's likely to kill them first.)

[Drooling Iguana]

Kneel before Grodd!

I for one welcome our new primate overlords.

[Sea Skimmer]

This is bringing my dream of orangutans trained to throw hand grenades for jungle combat ever closer to reality.

[wautd]

Next step, bat wings?

[Vendetta]

Dolphins have also been observed using tools IIRC, excluding the hit-dolphins that supposedly escaped from NO.

Lots of animals have been observed using, and even making tools. (Making tools in this context means picking something up and modifying it to achieve something. Some crows will pick up bits of wire and bend them into hooks to retrieve food, Like so.)

This is the first time we've observed tool use in gorillas, and the first time we've seen other primates using tools for something not directly related to obtaining food. (chimpanzees will use grasses to coax termites out of their mounds and branches and rocks to break nutshells)

[Darth Wong]

It's not even the first time we've observed it in gorillas. It's just the first time we've observed it in gorillas in the wild, as opposed to gorillas in zoos.

[Stravo]

If they start learning to ride horseback I say we start an immediate extermination program.

[Lord of the Abyss]

and the first time we've seen other primates using tools for something not directly related to obtaining food.

Orangutangs use tools as lockpicks. There was also a recent story of a pair of male chimps beating a female with clubs.

[Drooling Iguana]

This is bringing my dream of orangutans trained to throw hand grenades for jungle combat ever closer to reality.

That would bring a whole new meaning to guerilla warfare.

*BA-DUM CHING!*

[Edi]

If they start learning to ride horseback I say we start an immediate extermination program.

That's chimps you're thinking about, Stravo... (I know, I know, Planet of the Apes reference, but in the real world it's the chimps that are far worse)

Edi