we're not so different

[Jim Devine <jdevine03@xxxxxxxxx>]

Chimps observed making spears
The primates use the weapons to hunt small mammals for food.
> From Times Wire Services

February 23, 2007/LA TIMES

WASHINGTON — Chimpanzees living on the West African savanna have been
observed fashioning spears from sticks and using them to hunt small
mammals — the first routine production of deadly weapons observed in
animals other than humans.

The chimps were repeatedly seen using their hands and teeth to tear
the side branches off long straight sticks and peeling back the bark
and sharpening one end of the sticks with their teeth, the researchers
report in Thursday's online issue of the journal Current Biology.
Then, grasping the weapon in a "power grip," they jabbed into
tree-branch hollows where bush babies — small monkey-like mammals —
sleep during the day.

After stabbing their prey, they removed the injured or dead animal and ate it.

Lead researcher Jill D. Pruetz of Iowa State University in Ames said
it reminded her of the shower scene in "Psycho."

The new observations are "stunning," said Craig Stanford, a
primatologist and professor of anthropology at USC.

"Really fashioning a weapon to get food — I'd say that's a first for
any nonhuman animal."

Fellow researcher Paco Bertolani of Cambridge University in England
saw an adolescent female chimp use a spear to stab a bush baby as it
slept in a tree hollow, pull it out and eat it.

Pruetz thought it was a fluke, but then saw similar weapon- making
herself "over the course of 19 days almost daily," she said.

It was typically females who displayed the behavior.

Pruetz and Bertolani were watching the Fongoli community of
savanna-dwelling chimpanzees in southeastern Senegal.

Chimps are known to use tools to crack open nuts and fish for
termites. Some birds use tools, as do other animals such as gorillas,
orangutans and even naked mole rats.

The chimps' hunting method usually failed, the researchers said. The
studied apes mostly eat fruit, bark and legumes.

--
Jim Devine / "The truth is more important than the facts." -- Frank Lloyd Wright