Gorillas’ (Gorilla g. gorilla) knowledge of conspecifics’ affordances: intraspecific social tool use for food acquisition

Abstract

The use of tools, long thought to be uniquely human, has now been observed in other animal taxa including several species of birds, non-primate mammals as well as some non-human primate species. Chimpanzees, one of humankind's closest living relatives, exceed all other non-human animal species as they have been reported to use an exceptionally large toolkit. However, relatively little is known about the tool-use skills of the other great ape species. While the majority of tools described are inanimate objects, the use of social tools has received relatively little attention. Here we provide the first evidence of naturally occurring spontaneous exploitative behaviour of a conspecific as a social tool for food acquisition in non-human animals. We observed gorillas in captivity utilising a conspecific as a ladder to gain access to unreachable food. We discuss our findings in the light of other studies on social tool use and suggest the need for more nuanced interpretations of gorillas' cognitive skills. Keywords Social tool use • Great apes • Knowledge of the social world • Gorilla gorilla gorilla • Cognition

Intergroup conflict: origins, dynamics and consequences across taxa

“…Human groups deliberately select some community members to join raids on neighbouring tribes, with partner selection depending on both individual abilities and reputations [ 46 , 63 , 114 , 138 ]. Such skill-based partner choice to coordinate collective action is seen in other species too, including chimpanzees [ 139 ], gorillas ( Gorilla g. gorilla ) [ 140 ], marmosets ( Callithrix jacchus ) [ 141 ], harbour porpoises ( Phocoena phocoena ) [ 142 ] and groupers ( Plectropomus pessuliferus marisrubri ) [ 143 ].…”