In chimpanzees, it is only in the restricted context of tool use that manual and cognitive skills have been described, comparable to those that gorillas and orang-utans display in obtaining plant foods. We report the complex food preparation skills used to eat, without tools, the leaves of the tree Broussonettia papyrifera in the Sonso community of chimpanzees at Budongo Forest, Uganda. Able-bodied individuals used multi-stage techniques that required bimanual role differentiation at several stages, and were hierarchical in organisation. A total repertoire of 14 techniques was found, with strong preference in all individuals for either of two of these; 6 additional techniques were found when flowers and leaves were eaten together. However, in this community over 20% of individuals suffer from some form of upper- or lower-limb injury as a result of snares. We investigated the manner of compensation for upper-limb injury. Only the most severely injured showed reduced feeding efficiency. Injured individuals were found to use the same repertoire of techniques as able-bodied chimpanzees. We found no evidence to suggest that injured individuals were able to develop wholly novel techniques optimal for their specific injuries, although shifts in preference for particular techniques did occur. Rather, injured individuals used novel ways of achieving particular steps in the process; by "working around" their impairments; in this way, they managed to use the same techniques as the able-bodied. Since snare injuries generally befall young animals, these results suggest that chimpanzees learn techniques partly through observational learning (of, necessarily, able-bodied individuals).
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Similar content being viewed by others Explore related subjectsDiscover the latest articles and news from researchers in related subjects, suggested using machine learning. Author information Authors and AffiliationsScottish Primate Research Group, University of St Andrews, School of Psychology, St Andrews, Fife KY16 9JU, Scotland, , , , ,
Emma J. Stokes & Richard W. Byrne
Accepted after revision: 8 February 2001
Electronic Publication
About this article Cite this articleStokes, E.J., Byrne, R.W. Cognitive capacities for behavioural flexibility in wild chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes): the effect of snare injury on complex manual food processing. Anim.Cogn. 4, 11–28 (2001). https://doi.org/10.1007/s100710100082
Received: 20 June 2000
Issue Date: July 2001
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s100710100082
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