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Competent chimpanzee nutcrackers

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

Humans are considered to be superior tool users and uniquely able to teach skills to apprentices. However, a clear understanding of the differences between humans and other animal species has been limited by our difficulty to perform natural cross-species comparisons. A research team from the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany, and from the University College London, UK, compared humans' and chimpanzees' learning to crack the same species of nuts as they forage for food in the African forest.

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© Christophe Boesch