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Sunday, January 25, 2009

Capuchin Monkeys Learn Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky's Nutcracker Suite!

In what may be a modern-day snapshot of humanity's technological infancy, researchers have observed wild capuchin monkeys carefully selecting stone hammers best suited for the task of cracking nuts.
Previously, Visalberghi's team was the first to see capuchin monkeys put nuts on boulders and smash them open with stones.
On its own, this observation was monumental: Outside of humans, the only other primate species in which this behavior — more complex than even the much-celebrated chimpanzee use of "spears" — had been observed was chimps.
Questions remained, however, as to whether the monkeys consciously selected their tools or merely grabbed the first stone at hand.
The latest findings, published Thursday in Current Biology, answer the question conclusively: The monkeys know that certain stones work better than others, and choose accordingly.
When Visalberghi's team presented the monkeys with stones of different sizes, and later with stones of similar sizes but different weights, they routinely selected the heaviest, densest stone, ignoring those too light or fragile to break a thick shell.
http://blog.wired.com/wiredscience/2009/01/monkeytools.html

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