Why chimpanzees are smart

So apes are definitely stronger than humans, probably around twice as strong. But why? Scientific American tries to explain:. They say that a big reason chimps can lift heavier things than we can, is that they have less control over how much muscle they use each time they lift. Humans have a lot more fine motor control than chimps: we can do things like play a guitar, paint teeny tiny lines or thread a needle.

We might not be able to fight off a chimp, but we can make some pretty amazing needlepoints. Image: David Heyes. The gazelle that will have the greatest chance at living the longest would be one that could detect and run from predators the quickest; complex decision making is not required and would even hinder this split second action.

Chimpanzees are not like flighty gazelles. They seem to wait, observe their situation and surroundings, weigh the costs and benefits to their behavior, and then act based on what they have seen and considered.

In waiting and gathering information about their surroundings a chimp may be able to make a more informed decision about where to find food and how to access it. Problem solving. Problem solving is a skill that is dependent on having a complex brain that can accommodate the absorption and synthesis of many different stimuli. As you learned earlier, a chimpanzee is known to observe and make decisions based on the situation.

This leads us to believe that a chimp can be a good problem solver. The act of solving problems opens a lot of new possible rewards for the animals that are capable of it. In one instance, a chimpanzee in a laboratory setting was presented with a banana that was just out of reach. The chimp had two sticks available to it that were separately each too short to reach the banana, but that could be interlocked and used as a whole, longer stick to knock down the food.

The chimpanzee used what is called insight, knowing how an object can be applied to the task at hand without any former practice, and also demonstrated tool use. Other animals could not comprehend the concept of using a stick to reach a banana because of the indirect thought that has to be applied in using the tool. A lemur would never use a stick to get food that was out of his or her reach because they make direct connections between seeing and eating their food.

There is no doubt that animals can communicate. For a chimpanzee, words are often unnecessary because they can make their intentions clear without using words. For instance, to get help from a group member, a chimpanzee with a thorn in her skin merely has to present the troublesome area to another chimp. The second chimp obligingly grooms the first to try to alleviate any problems he or she may find. Evolution of Intelligence. Other researchers said that when confronted with problems obtaining food from the other side of a fence, chimps were not only clever on their own and often competitive with a fellow chimp, but they also showed a willingness to cooperate with one another to get the job done.

Brian Hare of Duke University and the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany, said bonobos outperformed their chimp relatives in cooperative tasks and shared food more readily.

The emotions of caring and mourning have been observed, as in the case of the chimp mother that carried on her back the corpse of her 2-year-old daughter for days after she had died. After fights between two chimps, scientists said, others in the group were seen consoling the loser and acting as mediators to restore peace. Devyn Carter of Emory described the sympathetic response to a chimp named Knuckles, who was afflicted with cerebral palsy.

No fellow chimp was seen to take advantage of his disability. Even the alpha male gently groomed Knuckles. The answer seems to vary from one isolated chimp community to another. Scientists said that indicated the role of social learning — picking up skills by emulation — and responses to different opportunities in separate cultures.

At Gombe, the site in Tanzania where Dr. Goodall made a name for herself, the chimps with stick tools are accomplished extractors of termites from their nests. But termite fishing is rare in Bossou, Guinea. At Bossou, and not Gombe, chimps have learned to make use of many other tools, including stones for cracking nuts.

They fold leaves in a mat to sponge water out of tree hollows and scoop algae off stream surfaces. They collect edible ants with sticks. They take stouter tree branches and pound the juicy palm fiber to a pulp, preparing another favorite food.

Videos of Bossou nutcrackers show adult chimps, often female, placing a nut on a flat stone anvil and slamming down on it with a smaller rock. Two or three youngsters sit around watching. The adults do not appear to be giving instructions, except by example.

Biro said. If it is not learned by 6 or 7, it will never be acquired. At a dense forest in the Congo Republic, Crickette M. Sanz of the Max Planck institute said the chimps seemed as curious about her as she was about them.

Groups came forward, calling others to join them. Sometimes, they sat with her for hours, eating fruit, grooming and even mating.