In a first, chimpanzees seen smashing and eating tortoises

In a paper published today in the journal Scientific Reports, scientists report seven chimpanzees breaking open forest hinge-back tortoises in Gabon’s Loango National Park. It’s also unique because the way in which the primates eat these tortoises—slamming them against tree branches and trunks—is a type of “percussive” technology that is akin to tool use, says study coauthor Simone Pika, who studies chimpanzees at Germany’s University of Osnabrück. A paper published in Science in March suggests that different groups of chimpanzees often have unique traits like behaviors, and if these populations disappear, these aspects of chimp “culture” will be lost forever.

Source: www.nationalgeographic.com