Wild chimpanzees have been spotted teaching their younger relatives to use technology – not smartphones and satnavs but sticks and stone anvils. The behaviour, reported in Frontiers in Psychology, offers a glimpse into the rich cognitive and social lives of our closest living relatives, and is another reminder that behaviours thought uniquely human are not always so.
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We already knew that chimps use tools. Primatologist Jane Goodall famously observed a chimp called ‘David Greybeard’ strip a twig to make a termite-fishing rod. Chimps also make leaf sponges to soak up liquids, shape sticks to fish for algae, and sharpen simple spears for hunting.
Between 2017 and 2025, researchers set up camera traps in the Dindefelo area of south-eastern Senegal, at spots where chimps are known to stop and use tools.
In one video, mother Soukki seems to show her daughter Saïsaï how to dip for ants. With Saïsaï standing opposite, she dips a stick in and out of an ant nest, wipes the attached insects off with her hand, then gobbles them up. She then pokes the stick back into the colony, grabs her daughter, and leads her to it. Saïsaï pulls the stick from the nest, wipes off the ants and eats them.
In a second recording, mother Féré places three baobab fruits on a rocky outcrop. Then a juvenile male arrives and appears to show Féré’s baby, Fotti, how to break open the fruit by smashing it against the rock. Fotti watches closely, then tries, and eventually succeeds in repeating the process.
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“Here we show that receiving food and tools from experienced individuals, which we call food or tool transfer, may help chimpanzees learn to use technology and extract foods that are difficult to access,” says Andreu Sánchez-Megías from the University of Barcelona and Jane Goodall Institute Spain, in Senegal. “Tool transfer thus appears to be a form of teaching, together with observation and supervised practice.”
Overall, the team recorded 33 instances of chimps transferring tools to one another, as well as four instances of them transferring fruit. Most involved mothers and their offspring, although other family members sometimes got involved too.
It’s a kind of hands-on teaching - experienced chimps can show youngsters what to do, then give them the opportunity to try it for themselves. Sometimes, it seems the best way to learn is to watch others closely then get your hands dirty.
Find out more about the study, published in Frontiers in Psychology.
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Top image: Chimpanzee adults showing youngsters how to use tools to hunt for ants. Credit: Jane Goodall Institute Spain in Senegal & Sánchez-Megías, Barciela, López-Leal, Piccolella, Galán-Plana, Mirghani, Llana, Galbany, Dotras, Renelies-Hamilton, Arroyo and Hernandez-Aguilar (2026)
