Press releases (archive)

A long-term study of western gorillas in Gabon has revealed an unexpected behaviour – they use their teeth to crack open and eat nuts

Travel linearity increases in humans when they travel in increasingly large groups, while chimpanzees travel more goal-directed when they are on their…

Human foragers of both sexes use the sun for finding direction from a very young age

Contrary to humans, chimpanzees did not use search strategies to facilitate their task

Flies carrying deadly pathogens form long-term associations with monkeys and apes following them through the rainforest

From African golden cats to zebra duikers, Chimp&See lets you get up close and personal with African wildlife

Female mammals kill the offspring of their competitors when resources are scarce

Study offers a possible answer on how our human ancestors may have met their nutritional needs of iodine in the Congo basin

Early ancestors of the last Neandertals lived in Europe already 120,000 years ago

Mankind’s closest living relatives – chimpanzees – are disappearing from the earth, because their habitats are destroyed and they are being eaten into…

Scientists discover the oldest systematically produced stone artifacts to date

An in situ exhibition at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig

Wild chimpanzees eat tortoises after cracking them open against tree trunks

Mothers’ presence influences the reproductive success of their adult sons

Denisovan mandible likely represents the earliest hominin fossil on the Tibetan Plateau

By focusing on a group of organisms taxon-specific databases make a broad range of high-quality data accessible

DNA sequences from Indonesia and New Guinea reveal new branches of the Denisovan family tree

Songbirds that work together with raising their young coordinate its attention and exchange itself intensively with each other

Wild female chimpanzees copulate more frequently with males who share meat with them over long periods of time, according to a study led by …

Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany, welcomes Daniel Haun as new Director

Visual artists Elmar Hermann and Emanuel Mathias are interested in the relationship between science and art, language and image. In their new…

African wild apes notice and often react to novel items in their environment

New research leads the way in validating a promising human brain model

Human impact reduces the behavioral repertoire of chimpanzees

Increased dust loads result in decreased chewing efficiency in chimpanzees

Study describes unique behavioral patterns of Bili-Uéré chimpanzees in the DR Congo

Isotope analyses performed on single amino acids in Neandertals’ collagen samples shed new light on their debated diet

Orangutans make complex economic decisions about tool use depending on the current 'market' situation

Chimpanzees learn nut-cracking technique and reach expert efficiency relatively faster than humans

The language we speak affects the way we process, store and retrieve information

New studies reveal deep history of Denisovans and Neanderthals in southern Siberia

Scientists can reconstruct the feeding behavior and habitats of extinct vertebrates

Plant phytolith and water content cause differing degrees of…

Nature magazine includes Max Planck researcher in its list of top ten personalities that most influenced science in 2018

Starting with a tiny piece…

DNA fragments from Neandertals in the human genome shed light on brain evolution

A characteristic feature of modern humans is the unusually round…

Orangutans spontaneously bend straight wires into hooks to fish for food

The bending of a hook into wire to fish for the handle of a basket is…

Despite government claims, orangutan populations have not increased

Orangutan populations are still declining rapidly, despite claims by the Indonesian…

To recognize conspecifics chimpanzees use their sense of smell

Primates, including humans, are usually thought of as visual animals with reduced…

Bonobos make themselves appear smaller than they actually are

In general, one cannot only see how tall an animal or a person is, one can also hear it,…

Facial resemblance of rhesus macaques with their parents increases with age

Most humans are good at identifying pairs of close relatives amongst the…

Chimpanzee are selective when it comes to sharing food: friends and individuals who helped acquiring the food benefit more often

Why share food with…

New find indicates the appearance of a unique technological complex in North Africa around 90,000 years ago

A single bone artefact found in a…

New findings have high relevance for understanding regeneration in mammals

Among all four-legged animals, the ability of salamanders to replace lost…

Active participation in group-hunts earns wild chimpanzees meat access

The gains from cooperative hunting and meat sharing are seen as fundamental…

The splay of tooth roots reveals how South African hominins, Australopithecus africanus and Paranthropus robustus, chewed their food

Ever since the…

Newly-sequenced genome sheds lights on interactions between ancient hominins

Up until 40,000 years ago, at least two groups of hominins inhabited…

Chimpanzee foods are mechanically more demanding than previously thought and might give clues about the evolution of the chewing apparatus in…

Mangabey monkeys get free access to fresh tropical nuts by profiting from the nut-cracking skills of chimpanzees and the strong jaws of hogs

An…

Not only the attractiveness of a potential grooming partner matters to wild chimpanzees and sooty mangabeys, their choice also depends on who is…

Humans did not stem from a single ancestral population in one region of Africa, as is often claimed. Instead, our African ancestors were diverse in…