A recent study tells us of female chimps in the Fongoli part of Senegal. The female chimps in this part of the chimp world are more likely to use tools when hunting for prey than are males. The males in this region are more likely to kill their prey with their hands and are more opportunistic hunters. The females appear to be more deliberate in their hunting activities.
J. D. Pruetz , P. Bertolani , K. Boyer Ontl , S. Lindshield , M. Shelley , E. G. Wessling. New evidence on the tool-assisted hunting exhibited by chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes verus) in a savannah habitat at Fongoli, Sénégal. Royal Society Open Science, 15 April 2015 DOI: 10.1098/rsos.140507
Among the more fascinating conjectures as to why this female hunting and tool use behaviour is only seen in Fongoli relates to the type of “Chimp Culture” found there.
In most chimp societies any prey killed by a female or a low-ranking male is taken by the alpha male. In Fongoli this is not the case. The alpha male role in this chimp society conforms to the “if you caught it, it’s yours” approach to hunting.
How this cultural difference arose is the province of speculation.
Additional speculation can be directed to how this cultural practice seems to be transmitted from one alpha to the next, and perhaps just as importantly whether this particular cultural variant may impact later on the survival of the group as a whole.
Chimp cultural differences have been observed before, in terms of such things as coping with rainfall and other individual-oriented conduct. This may be the first time a cultural difference related to some primordial concept of “property rights” has been seen.
We can also anticipate different interpretations of these observations.
The feminists will no doubt remark on the negative impact of chimp patriarchy, the evolutionary biologists will want to know if the brains of these particular chimps are somehow different than other chimp brains, those given to epigenetics will seek to account for this uniqueness by making reference to the local geography and the abundance of food while blizzarding us all with drawings of DNA molecules demonstrating gene expression, and no doubt some intrepid souls will find evidence of extraterrestrial visitors who imparted higher wisdom to this group of primates.
The evidence for the space alien interpretation is compelling.
Some happy souls believe that “science” can tell us “the truth” about everything we observe. What is fairly clear from this set of observations regarding female chimps and tools is the wide range of possible theoretical explanations which can account for them. Or at the very least include them into an existing interpretive worldview.
It’s not quite as bad as trying to interpret a poem but sometimes feels that way.
“How does this poem speak to you?”
“How do these observations bolster your already existing worldview?”
The rules which govern which set of interpretations are going to be “admissible” are different for poetry and science. Not too many people have actually asked themselves what these rules are and tried to provide lists. I haven’t. If someone actually does this will we be astounded at how different the two lists are? Or at how much they overlap?
In the meantime, female chimps in Fongoli will continue to use their tools while those elsewhere do not.
The distance from objectively accepted observation to accepted theoretical interpretation is farther than it first appears.
Unjustified Margins 