*Across Africa, people often lay snare traps to catch bushmeat, killing or injuring chimps and other wildlife.
But a few chimps living in the rainforests of Guinea have learnt to recognise these snare traps laid by human hunters, researchers have found.
More astonishing, the chimps actively seek out and intentionally deactivate the traps, setting them off without being harmed. *
From BBC.
until they start catching people in traps, they are still below Ewoks
LOL.
I’d feel safer if Charlton Heston was still around, though.
Think again. Monkeys would have built their own AT-AT.
I would guess the chimps are not actually thinking about it but observing it. If the chimps sees a human set the trap, it watches the human test the trap. Then it watches the human deactivate it and reset it.
Chimps are known to easily watch and copy human behaviour so this shouldn’t be surprising.
I remember the article being all amzaed because trial and error wasn’t possibl;e as “one mistake would result in death!!!” Ummm what about the chimp or chimps stood around watching the unfortunate dead one? Do they not still learn?
Heh. Great point. Learning through observation. They saw people do it, they saw their fellows get caught or get it wrong. The ones doing it successfully knew how to do it before they tried. The ones who did it unsuccessfully, well…
Scientists have found that chimps are amazingly similar to Southern rednecks. They do learn and communicate by experimenting or just cheering another one on and watching to see what happens. There is a chimp whoop and holler that translates directly into “Hey y’all, check this shit out!”.
It’s amazing that we would think primates as similar to us as chimpanzees wouldn’t be capable of learning by trial and error. They have big brains. They solve problems. Remember, if politics and human exceptionalism didn’t apply to science, they’d probably be congeneric with us.
Unfortunately, they aren’t planning far enough ahead, as this bit of cleverness will simply make humans come at them in force, with high-powered rifles.
What? No “I, for one, welcome our new chimp overlords” yet?
Oh I must admit I laughed
Doesn’t work with rednecks.
Damit, beaten to the punch.
Right. This article shows more about our expectations than it does about their abilities.