Camera traps at 14 Senegalese sites film chimpanzees handing their tools to youngsters
Fifteen hours of footage from Dindefelo yielded 33 handovers of dipping sticks and other tools, most of them between relatives, with adults giving up ants they could have eaten to infants who then fished for themselves.
The Scientist · Science desk
What happened
- Researchers from the University of Barcelona and the Jane Goodall Institute Spain analysed almost 15 hours of camera-trap footage shot between 2017 and 2025 at the savanna site of Dindefelo, Senegal.
- The cameras, placed at 14 spots where wild western chimpanzees were already known to use tools, caught 33 tool transfers between individuals plus four handovers of fruit.
- Adults, especially females, were 58% of the original holders of the transferred objects, and infants were the largest group of recipients at 42%.
- Most objects passed between relatives, and 30% of all transfers went from a mother to her own offspring.
- A separate 30 minutes of footage from 11 baobab-pounding sites caught a juvenile male cracking a fruit against rock in front of the infant Fotti and then guiding his hand to one.
Why it matters
- What it limits constraint The study can point to how transfers might help a youngster learn, but not how much of its learning speed they account for: no count of filmed tool-use bouts was reported, and no individual infants were followed up.
- What doesn't add up contradiction Whether the same dataset shows tolerated begging or instruction depends on which part is weighted: youngsters solicited nearly every voluntary transfer, while the two published videos show the adult moving first.
- What's now possible capability Because the donor's lost meal is visible on film, camera traps at known tool sites can now score the animal-behaviour test for teaching instead of inferring it from field notes.
- What it sets up precedent Two of the four behaviours filmed are restricted to one regional population, so extending the teaching claim to chimpanzees generally requires the same footage from eastern and central sites.
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Whether any of this counts as teaching turns on a definition field researchers keep deliberately strict. Andrew Whiten at the University of St Andrews told New Scientist that the Dindefelo observation "fits the criteria for teaching used in animal behaviour research - that the behaviour benefits the pupil's opportunities to learn, and is done despite having a cost to the teacher." [27] The cost the team logged was food. During the filmed interactions, the donor forgoing the ants or the fruit was the teacher. [26]
Andreu Sánchez-Megías, the study's first author, said: "Tool transfers thus appear to be a form of teaching, together with observation and supervised practice. It appears that mothers are the main models and teachers for young chimpanzees in this manner." [17] The aggregate numbers put a condition on the first half of that. All but one of the voluntary transfers appeared to happen at the recipient's initiative [22]. Some objects were taken outright, and the dispossessed chimpanzee sometimes hit the thief or grabbed the object back [23]. An adult tolerating a persistent infant is a weaker claim than an adult instructing one. In both published videos the older animal moved first. Soukki loaded the stick before pulling Saïsaï over to it [11], and the juvenile male pounded a baobab fruit in front of Fotti before guiding his hand to one [12].
Fifteen hours is the base for any rate here, and those hours were selected. The cameras sat at 14 places where these chimpanzees had already been recorded using tools [6]. That placement is why eight years of trapping produced 33 transfers at all. Over roughly 15 hours, 33 comes to about two per hour of footage [30]. Neither account reports how many tool-use bouts the cameras caught in total, or how infants who received tools fared later against those who did not.
The two published accounts report the same 33 transfers differently. New Scientist gave counts, 19 transfers during ant dipping, 10 during algae fishing and four during termite fishing [3]; phys.org gave the paper's percentages of 58, 30 and 12 [2]. Nineteen of 33 is 57.6%, and the three counts sum to the reported total [21][24].
Where the behaviours occur limits how far the result travels. Ant dipping and termite fishing turn up in communities of all four chimpanzee subspecies, while algae fishing and baobab pounding are known only from western chimpanzees in Senegal, Mali and Guinea [25]. Algae fishing accounted for 30% of the transfers [2]. New Scientist also notes that baobab pounding is treated as proto-tool use, because the stone is an anvil the animal never holds [14].
R. Adriana Hernandez-Aguilar at the University of Barcelona said of the footage, "To actually catch it on film is important and was very surprising for us." [18] Elliot Howard-Spink at the Max Planck Institute of Animal Behavior, who was not part of the team, said: "Teaching events are quite rare and difficult to study because only so many learning attempts are needed until an individual learns a behaviour." [28] He also said: "Showing across many forms of tool use that these tool transfers are indicative of a very simple form of teaching is very cool and nice." [29]
What to watch
- Whether follow-up work tracks named individuals such as Saisai and Fotti over time, so acquisition speed with and without transfers can be compared.
- Whether camera traps at eastern or central chimpanzee sites record the same transfers, since algae fishing and baobab pounding are only known from Senegal, Mali and Guinea.
- Whether other teams score the cost-to-teacher criterion on film, the test Whiten singled out.
Clarity's read
What the record supports and how the coverage leans. The claims behind it follow.
Reality
- Evidence66
- Adoption
- Not scored
- Hype gap+15
- Incentives45
- Confidence62
Claim ledger
Ranked by verification strength, evidence, and original report placement.
- [1]
The authors recorded 33 instances of tool transfer from one chimpanzee to another, as well as four instances in which chimpanzees handed over fruit.
- [2]
Of the 33 transfers observed, 58% happened in the context of ant dipping, while 30% and 12% took place during algae fishing and termite fishing respectively.
- [3]
The camera traps recorded 19 tool transfers when chimpanzees were dipping for ants, 10 during fishing for algae and four when fishing for termites.
- [4]
Sánchez-Megías and colleagues from the Jane Goodall Institute Spain in Senegal and the University of Barcelona studied wild western chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes verus) at the savanna site of Dindefelo, Senegal.
- [5]
The team analysed almost 15 hours of camera-trap footage taken between 2017 and 2025.
- [6]
The camera traps had been deliberately installed at 14 spots where chimpanzees were known to use tools, including fishing for algae, army ants and fungus-growing termites.
- [7]
The researchers also gathered 30 minutes of footage from cameras at 11 sites where chimpanzees habitually carry baobab fruit and pound it against stationary stone anvils.
- [8]
Andreu Sánchez-Megías, a Ph.D. candidate at the University of Barcelona and the Jane Goodall Institute Spain in Senegal, is first author of the study, published in Frontiers in Psychology.
- [9]
Most (58%) of the original owners of the transferred objects were adults, especially females, while the largest percentage of recipients (42%) were infants rather than youngsters or adults.
- [10]
The majority of objects were handed over from one relative to another, most frequently, 30%, from mother to offspring.
- [11]
In footage from 2018, mother Soukki deliberately inserted a dipping stick into an ant colony, grabbed her baby daughter Saïsaï and led her to the ready-to-be-extracted tool; Saïsaï then pulled it from the nest and ate the ants sticking to it.
- [12]
In footage from 2021, mother Féré collected three baobab fruits; a juvenile male picked up one fruit and repeatedly pounded it against a rocky outcrop, then guided Fotti's hand to the fruit once, and Fotti attentively observed before trying to pound for himself, eventually with success.
- [13]
New Scientist reports that Féré placed the three fruits near her infant son Fotti and that the juvenile male was probably an older sibling.
- [14]
Baobab pounding is considered proto-tool use rather than tool use, because the stones are used as an anvil rather than being directly held and manipulated.
- [15]
The authors found that the majority of tool transfers took place from skilled to inexperienced individuals, including mother-offspring pairs and other relatives.
- [16]
Sánchez-Megías said: "Here we show that receiving food and tools from experienced individuals, which we call food or tool transfer, may help chimpanzees learn to use technology to extract foods that are difficult to access."
- [17]
Sánchez-Megías said: "Tool transfers thus appear to be a form of teaching, together with observation and supervised practice. It appears that mothers are the main models and teachers for young chimpanzees in this manner."
- [18]
R. Adriana Hernandez-Aguilar at the University of Barcelona said: "To actually catch it on film is important and was very surprising for us."
- [19]
How chimpanzees learn tool skills is debated; the open question is whether individuals copy behaviour after observation, actively teach each other, or independently arrive at the same solutions to a task.
- [20]
Sánchez-Megías said the videos support the idea that other social mechanisms such as observation and supervised practice help youngsters learn to use tools.
- [21]
The 19 ant-dipping transfers reported by New Scientist are 57.6% of the 33 total, matching the 58% figure attributed to the paper.
- [22]
All but one of the voluntary transfers seemed to happen at the recipient's initiative.
- [23]
In some cases tools and fruit were stolen outright, in which case the unlucky possessor might hit the thief to retaliate or grab the object back.
- [24]
The three context counts sum to the reported total of 33 transfers.
- [25]
Termite fishing and ant dipping occur in communities of all four chimpanzee subspecies across Africa, while fishing for algae and baobab pounding are known only from western chimpanzees in Senegal, Mali and Guinea.
- [26]
During the observed interactions, the researchers noted that the teacher was forgoing food for the learning youngster's benefit.
- [27]
Andrew Whiten at the University of St Andrews said: "This is an important observation because it fits the criteria for teaching used in animal behaviour research - that the behaviour benefits the pupil's opportunities to learn, and is done despite having a cost to the teacher."
- [28]
Elliot Howard-Spink at the Max Planck Institute of Animal Behavior in Germany said: "Teaching events are quite rare and difficult to study because only so many learning attempts are needed until an individual learns a behaviour."
- [29]
Howard-Spink said: "Showing across many forms of tool use that these tool transfers are indicative of a very simple form of teaching is very cool and nice."
- [30]
Thirty-three transfers in almost 15 hours of camera-trap footage is about two transfers per hour of footage.
- [31]
Neither published account gives a total number of filmed tool-use bouts or a comparison of later skill between infants who received transfers and those who did not, so no rate or effect size can be computed from them.
Sources
2 independent publishers whose own reporting we read for this story.
- newscientist.comWild chimpanzees teach youngsters by handing them tools
1 article · September 15, 2026
- phys.orgChimpanzees give youngsters the tools to learn tricky techniques
1 article · September 15, 2026
Topics and entities
Topics
- Social learning and teaching in animals
- Camera-trap field research
- Primatology
Entities
- Andreu Sánchez-Megías
- University of St Andrews
- Max Planck Institute of Animal Behavior
- University of Barcelona
- Western chimpanzee
- Elliot Howard-Spink
- Frontiers in Psychology
- R. Adriana Hernandez-Aguilar
- Jane Goodall Institute Spain