Thread: Researchers discover the smartest Monkeys in the World

Culture makes you smart - the Chimpanzees of Bossou and Nimba

Even the babies play very individually and are very demanding: The children of the monkeys of Bossou are not satisfied with sticks as toys, but look for living stuffed animals - preferably rock hyrax, the African relative of the woodchuck. "The young chimps fling them against trees to stun or paralyze them, they carry them around, stroking their hair and they play with dead hyrax as with dolls," says a researcher on site.

These chimps really amaze everybody, even the most experienced scientists. Japanese zoologists discovered in the jungle of Guinea in Africa a monkey tribe, whose members possess an ingenuity and intelligence, as it has never been observed in any other animal before.

How did this creative enclave in the jungle come into being? Why are there still apes puling in termites hillls with their fingers looking for larvae like in prehistoric times, while their counterparts in the neighboring woods have long even invented cutlery and, yes, hunting weapons?

On this question, the behavioral scientist Carel van Schaik in the jungles of Sumatra has found an answer: "In places where the members spend more time together as a clan, we observe a larger repertoire of innovations." The apes learn from each other - and while they are learning, they promote their intelligence: "Culture makes you smart," says van Schaik.

In Matsuzawas flagship chimpanzees, this combination of curiosity and creativity even leads to the point that the animals outwit their human neighbors. But the researchers have found one crucial thing that still sets "us" apart from "them", says Max-Planck-zoologist Michael Tomasello. He calls it the "ratchet effect". Accordingly, only people succeed at culturally building on what has been learned by the generations before -- like a ratchet, which can always spin a tad further, but never back.

This evolution of culture is given only in humans, says Tomasello. "Apes do also ape," he says, "but the true masters are aping are the children of men."

Nevertheless, these chimps fish, wipe, clean, beat, eat with spoons, explore, create, extract, stamp, hammer. They outsmart people and hush away attackers with rough-hewn stones and other improvized technical aids. They make for themselves sponges from chewed plants and fold palm leaves to form cups and cushions.

See German Article in Die Welt:

• http://www.welt.de/wissenschaft/article13482004/Forscher-entdecken-die-kluegsten-Affen-der-Welt.html

Or this photo album of the monkeys in their original habitat at Shah Rogers Photography - The Wildlife & Nature Photography of Anup Shah & Fiona Rogers

• Western chimpanzee young male 'Jeje' aged 13 years vocalising (Pan troglodytes verus). Bossou Forest, Mont Nimba, Guinea. Dec 2010.