ReviewPhilosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences2013
Is primate tool use special? Chimpanzee and New Caledonian crow compared.
Review in Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences, 2013. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 30 papers.
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
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Who cites it
30 citing papers in PubMed.
- One Biology and the Status of Humans.Animals : an open access journal from MDPI · 2025Review
- Coding of tool use independent of body part.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2025Article
- Article
- Wild Chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes schweinfurthii) Use Tools to Access Out of Reach Water.American journal of primatology · 2025Article
- Hierarchical object combination and tool use in the great apes and human children.Primates; journal of primatology · 2022Article
- To drum or not to drum: Selectivity in tree buttress drumming by chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes verus) in the Nimba Mountains, Guinea.American journal of primatology · 2022Article
- Experimental investigation of orangutans' lithic percussive and sharp stone tool behaviours.PloS one · 2022Article
- Tools of the trade: the bio-cultural evolution of the human propensity to trade.Biology & philosophy · 2022Article
- Extending the Reach of Tooling Theory: A Neurocognitive and Phylogenetic Perspective.Topics in cognitive science · 2021Article
- Object sorting into a two-dimensional array in humans and chimpanzees.Primates; journal of primatology · 2021Article
- One Function One Tool? A Review on Mutual Exclusivity in Tool Use Learning in Human and Non-human Species.Frontiers in psychology · 2021Review
- Gorillas' (Gorilla g. gorilla) knowledge of conspecifics' affordances: intraspecific social tool use for food acquisition.Primates; journal of primatology · 2020Article
- Neural Processes Underlying Tool Use in Humans, Macaques, and Corvids.Frontiers in psychology · 2020Review
- Dog Stick Chewing: An Overlooked Instance of Tool Use?Frontiers in psychology · 2020Article
- Survey of Behavioral Indices of Welfare in Research Chimpanzees (Journal of the American Association for Laboratory Animal Science : JAALAS · 2019Article
- Acquisition of a socially learned tool use sequence in chimpanzees: Implications for cumulative culture.Evolution and human behavior : official journal of the Human Behavior and Evolution Society · 2017Article
- Field studies of Pan troglodytes reviewed and comprehensively mapped, focussing on Japan's contribution to cultural primatology.Primates; journal of primatology · 2017Review
- A novel tool-use mode in animals: New Caledonian crows insert tools to transport objects.Animal cognition · 2016Article
- Experimental studies illuminate the cultural transmission of percussive technologies in Homo and Pan.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2015Review
- Perspectives on object manipulation and action grammar for percussive actions in primates.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2015Article
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1 author.
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Abstract
The chimpanzee (Pan troglodytes) is well-known in both nature and captivity as an impressive maker and user of tools, but recently the New Caledonian crow (Corvus moneduloides) has been championed as being equivalent or superior to the ape in elementary technology. I systematically compare the two taxa, going beyond simple presence/absence scoring of tool-using and -making types, on four more precise aspects of material culture: (i) types of associative technology (tools used in combination); (ii) modes of tool making; (iii) modes of tool use; and (iv) functions of tool use. I emphasize tool use in nature, when performance is habitual or customary, rather than in anecdotal or idiosyncratic. On all four measures, the ape shows more variety than does the corvid, especially in modes and functions that go beyond extractive foraging. However, more sustained field research is required on the crows before this contrast is conclusive.
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