Apes Found to Use Tools
Apes Found to Use Tools
Evidence for ape intelligence got a major boost in the 1960s in East Africa, when Jane Goodall observed chimpanzees using a twig to "fish" for ants (pictured in a file photo)—the first documentation of wild chimps making and using tools. Until then, tool making had been considered a uniquely human ability.
The "notion is [tool use] requires higher intelligence, because it requires refashioning what nature has provided to achieve the user's goal," Anne Russon, an expert in ape intelligence at Canada's York University, said via email.
Since the too making discovery, scientists have discovered our closest cousins can use sign language, hunt with spears of their own making, and even beat college students in basic memory tests, among other skills.
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