ScienceDaily  — Chimpanzees in the Congo have developed specialised ‘tool kits’ to forage for army ants, reveals new research published today in the American Journal of Primatology. This not only provides the first direct evidence of multiple tool use in this context, but suggests that chimpanzees have developed a ‘sustainable’ way of harvesting food.

A team from the Goualougo Triangle Ape Project, led by Dr Crickette Sanz, studied several communities of chimpanzee throughout the Nouabalé-Ndoki national park in the Republic of Congo. After spending a collective 111 months in the Goualougo Triangle, the team recovered 1,060 tools and collected 25 video recordings of chimpanzees using them to forage for army ants.

“The use of tool sets is rare and has most often been observed in great apes,” said Sanz. “Until now there have been no reports of regular use of more than one type of tool to prey upon army ants.”

It is already known that chimpanzees use tools when foraging for honey or collecting termites. However the variation in techniques and the relationship between the ants and the chimpanzees has perplexed scientists for decades.

Journal reference:

1. Sanz, C.; Schoning, C.; Morgan, D. Chimpanzees Prey on Army Ants with Specialized Tools. American Journal of Primatology, 2009; DOI: 10.1002/ajp.20744