Chimpanzees show the widest variety of tool-use strategies of any non-human animal. This enables them to crack nuts, capture termites and ants, and even transfer tools between individuals to obtain food in their natural habitat. But how do wild chimpanzees acquire and pass on these tool-use skills? A study published in Frontiers in Psychology reveals how wild chimpanzees learn to use tools (wooden sticks, stone anvils, etc.) in the savannah.

According to the study, the fact that adult chimpanzees — especially mothers — teach and facilitate the use of tools helps immature chimpanzees acquire these skills. The transfer of tools to get algae, extract ants and catch termites is described as a teaching method through which wild chimpanzees transmit tool-use knowledge and skills.

The study is led by experts Andreu Sánchez-Megías and R. Adriana Hernandez-Aguilar, from the Faculty of Psychology of the University of Barcelona and the Jane Goodall Institute Spain (IJGE). Also taking part are Laia Dotras (UB and IJGE), Jordi Galbany (UBneuro and IJGE) and Adrián Arroyo, from the UB’s Faculty of Geography and History and the Institute of Archaeology (IAUB), as well as other members of the IJGE and the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology (Germany).

How do young chimpanzees learn?

The study analyses the social interactions of wild chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes verus), highly social primates with complex relational structures, in the Dindefelo savannah (Senegal). Between 2017 and 2025, the team recorded video footage with camera traps at 14 sites where chimpanzees used tools or proto-tools in the context of four technological behaviours.

“In addition to passing tools for fishing algae, extracting ants and catching termites among themselves, chimpanzees also share baobab tree fruits, which they crack open by striking them against stone or wooden anvils. This transfer of tools and fruits represents a form of teaching that mothers seem to use to help their offspring learn these tool-use behaviours,” explains Andreu Sánchez-Megías, first author of the article, researcher in the Department of Social and Quantitative Psychology and La Caixa Foundation doctoral student at the UB.

“On the other hand, we also describe a case in which a mother carries her offspring to a tool she has previously left in the ant nest so that the young one can pull it out covered in ants. In another example, a young chimpanzee apparently accompanies, encourages and helps a young individual that is trying to crack open a hard baobab fruit by striking it against a rocky surface,” the researcher notes.

These cases suggest that, in addition to the transfer of tools or fruits, “there are other social learning mechanisms involved that mediate the acquisition of technological behaviours in wild chimpanzees, such as observation and supervised practice,” says R. Adriana Hernández-Aguilar, Serra Hunter Professor at the UB and co-research director at IJGE.

Most tool-transfer opportunities among these wild chimpanzees arise when an individual takes a tool from another, who tolerates or facilitates the transfer and leaves the tool behind. “However, the study reveals that experienced individuals sometimes actively facilitate tool use. Females at Dindefelo may also receive tools more frequently than males. Furthermore, tool facilitation, particularly by adult females but also by juveniles, contributes to the acquisition of tool-use behaviours in young chimpanzees.”

Further research will be needed at Dindefelo to determine whether chimpanzees exhibit teaching and facilitation patterns different from those observed elsewhere. “Expanding studies to other locations will also allow us to draw comparisons and understand the role of teaching and facilitation in different habitats, chimpanzee communities and technological behaviours of varying degrees of complexity,” the experts conclude.

Video: Jane Goodall Institute Spain (IJGE)