Watch the incredible footage of chimps using twigs as fishing rods: Scientists stunned by unique behaviour in the wild

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Chimpanzees continue to amaze us with their clever, and often human-like, tactics in the wild.

While they’re known to use tools to help them gather food, these instruments differ depending on the environment.

Now, researchers have spotted them fishing in Bakoun, Guinea, using long branches or twigs as fishing rods to scoop up algae.

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While chimps are known to use tools to help them gather food, these instruments differ depending on the environment. In Bakoun, Guinea, researchers have now discovered a new variant – using long branches or twigs as fishing rods to scoop up algae

Footage of the remarkable behaviour was captured as a part of the Pan African Programme: the Cultured Chimpanzee launched in 2010 by researchers at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany.

At a temporary research site in Bakoun, the researchers set up non-invasive observation methods, including remote camera traps.

After noticing ‘conspicuous’ sticks near bodies of water, the researchers also placed these traps along rivers and ponds.

Doing this revealed scores of chimpanzees, from all walks of life, fishing for algae in the water.

The footage shows how the chimps plunge a long stick into the water and drag it back toward them after giving it time to collect the algae.

Then, they scoop it right off the ‘fishing rod’ and eat it.

At a temporary research site in Bakoun, the researchers set up non-invasive observation methods, including remote camera traps. After noticing ‘conspicuous’ sticks near bodies of water, the researchers also placed these traps along rivers and ponds

This particular use of natural tools is unique to Bakoun, the researchers say, differing greatly from the behaviour seen in neighbouring communities.

‘The tool-use appears quite different from what is known from a nearby long-term chimpanzee site at Bossou, Guinea and also differed from previous reports of rare algae scooping in Congo,’ says Ammie Kalan of the Max Plank Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology.

‘All age and sex classes of Bakoun chimpanzees were seen in the camera trap videos to successfully fish for algae in a river, stream, or pond using woody branches or twigs as fishing rods.

‘The tools were on average longer and sturdier than the algae fishing tools that are known from Bossou. Some Bakoun tools were more than 4 meters long.’

The footage revealed scores of chimpanzees, from all walks of life, fishing for algae in the water. This particular use of natural tools is unique to Bakoun, the researchers say, differing greatly from the behaviour seen in neighbouring communities

Footage of the remarkable behaviour was captured as a part of the Pan African Programme: the Cultured Chimpanzee launched in 2010 by researchers at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany.

While the method for collecting it might not be the same, the researchers say the freshwater green algae targeted by chimpanzees in Bakoun is of the same genus as that at Bossou.

But in Bakoun, it grows on the bottom of the stream beds rather than collecting at the surface as it does at the nearby site.

‘The ecology of the particular algae growing at each site may drive the types of tools necessary to harvest the algae,’ says Christophe Boesch, Director of the Primatology Department at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology.

‘We suggest that the algae probably provide an important nutritional benefit to the chimpanzees at Bakoun, especially during the dry season when chimpanzees were observed to fish algae for up to an hour at the same spot.’

WATCH CHIMP MOTHERS TEACH THEIR YOUNG TO USE TOOLS

For the first time ever, researchers have captured footage of wild chimpanzee mothers teaching their offspring to use tools.

The videos taken at the Nouabalé-Ndoki National Park in the Republic of Congo shed new light on the evolution of teaching, showing how young chimpanzees learn from their mothers to catch termites with ‘fishing probes.’

The footage also revealed that the mothers used different strategies to provide their young with tools.

Sometimes, they would bring multiple ‘fishing probes’ to the termite nest to share with their offspring.

Other times, the mothers would divide their own tools in half.

This suggests the mothers were able to anticipate the needs of their young, and come up with different ways to meet these needs with minimal effort.

 

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