Tool use for corpse cleaning in chimpanzees

Edwin J. C. van Leeuwen; Katherine A. Cronin; Daniel B. M. Haun

doi:10.1038/srep44091

Tool use for corpse cleaning in chimpanzees

Edwin J. C. van Leeuwen, Katherine A. Cronin, Daniel B. M. Haun

School of Psychology and Neuroscience

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

Abstract

For the first time, chimpanzees have been observed using tools to clean the corpse of a deceased group member. A female chimpanzee sat down at the dead body of a young male, selected a firm stem of grass, and started to intently remove debris from his teeth. This report contributes novel behaviour to the chimpanzee’s ethogram, and highlights how crucial information for reconstructing the evolutionary origins of human mortuary practices may be missed by refraining from developing adequate observation techniques to capture non-human animals’ death responses.

Original language	English
Article number	44091
Number of pages	4
Journal	Scientific Reports
Volume	7
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1038/srep44091
Publication status	Published - 13 Mar 2017

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title = "Tool use for corpse cleaning in chimpanzees",

abstract = "For the first time, chimpanzees have been observed using tools to clean the corpse of a deceased group member. A female chimpanzee sat down at the dead body of a young male, selected a firm stem of grass, and started to intently remove debris from his teeth. This report contributes novel behaviour to the chimpanzee{\textquoteright}s ethogram, and highlights how crucial information for reconstructing the evolutionary origins of human mortuary practices may be missed by refraining from developing adequate observation techniques to capture non-human animals{\textquoteright} death responses. ",

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Tool use for corpse cleaning in chimpanzees

Abstract

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