Savanna Chimps Exhibit Human-Like Sharing Behavior, Anthropologists Say

ScienceDaily (Dec. 1, 2011) — Sharing food has widely been considered by scholars as a defining characteristic of human behavior. But a new study by Iowa State University anthropology professor Jill Pruetz now reports that chimpanzees from her Fongoli research site in Senegal also frequently share food and hunting tools with other chimps.

Co-authored by ISU anthropology graduate student Stacy Lindshield, their study is posted online in Primates and will be published in a future issue of the journal.

The researchers witnessed 41 cases of Fongoli chimpanzees willingly transferring either wild plant foods or hunting tools to other chimpanzees. While previous research by primatologists had documented chimps transferring meat among other non-relatives, this is the first study to document non-meat sharing behavior.

"They're [the Fongoli chimps] not the only chimps that share, but in terms of the resources that we cover here, that is unique," said Pruetz (left), who was named a 2008 National Geographic Emerging Explorer for her research on savanna chimpanzees in Senegal. "I guess all chimps share meat, but they don't share plants or tools. Yet they do here, in addition to meat. It was intriguing when we first started seeing these events."

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