Beyond food for thought: tool use and manufacture by wild nonhuman primates in nonforaging contexts

Tool use and manufacture by wild nonhuman primates in nonforaging contexts - an important indicator of their technical intelligence - is widespread across taxa, but is sporadic in occurrence. Such behaviors are usually displayed by one or a few individuals within a population and typically occur in four contexts: aggression, communication and sexual display, hygiene, and in the modification of the environment. The cultural transmission of such tool use is often restricted by several socio-cognitive and ecological factors. Considering the relative rarity of nonforaging tool use in the wild, we recommend the development of standardized methodologies for long-term data collection under natural conditions and the establishment of novel experimental paradigms to conduct comparative studies on captive primates.

Automated summary

Tool use and manufacture by wild nonhuman primates in nonforaging contexts is an important indicator of their technical intelligence, but it is not commonly observed. Usually, only a few individuals within a population exhibit such behaviors, which occur in aggression, communication and sexual display, hygiene, and environmental modification contexts. The cultural transmission of tool use is limited by socio-cognitive and ecological factors. To further study this behavior, standardized long-term data collection methods under natural conditions and novel experimental paradigms for comparative studies on captive primates are recommended.