Back in 2007, scientists discovered that savanna chimps had been making use of tools for hunting their prey.
Recent study has been suggesting that these were the female species with such habits. It had been believed that the male is predominant in hunting although it had been discovered that with the assistance of more than 300 tools the hunts in the Fongoli, Senegal used to be carried out, although it had been found that more than half of the hunts were by females.
The lead author of the study, Jill Pruetz said, “It’s just another example of diversity in chimp behavior that we keep finding the longer we study wild chimps, it is more the exception than the rule that you’ll find some sort of different behavior, even though we’ve studied chimps extensively.”
The chimpanzees employed a spear lie tools for jolting at bush babies which hide themselves in tree cavities and making them flee.
Pruetz said, “What would often happen is the male would be in the vicinity of another chimp hunting with a tool, often a female, and the bush baby was able to escape the female and the male grabbed the bush baby as it fled.”
It is a norm at Fongoli, that when a low rank male/female hunts they are allowed to keep it and eat, although that is not how it works at other sites where the dominant male monkey comes and takes the prey from the lower ranked monkey. Therefore the female monkeys have barely any benefit for them to go hunting as other monkeys will be taking away their prey following their hunt.
The Fongoli chimps are the only non-human animals which are known to use tools for hunting their prey and it may be so as they have unique tolerance exhibited by the monkeys in this site.
The usage of tools may also be triggered by the environment as the conditions at Fongoli are very dry and bush babies hide in the cavities of the tree hence making this region appropriate for using tools.
