(p. A10) The Fongoli chimpanzees live in a mix of savanna and woodlands where prey is not as abundant as in rain forests. There are no red colobus monkeys, and although the chimps do hunt young vervet monkeys and baboons, the much smaller bush babies are their main prey.
Dr. Pruetz argues that less food may have prompted both technological and social innovation, resulting in new ways to hunt and new social interactions as well. Humans evolved in a similar environment, and, as she and her colleagues write in Royal Society Open Science, “tool-assisted hunting could have similarly been important for early hominins.”
. . .
By and large, said Dr. Pruetz, the adult males, which could take away a kill, show a “respect of ownership.” Theft rates are only about 5 percent. The chimps she studies also have more mixed-sex social groups than chimp bands in East Africa.
Travis Pickering, an anthropologist at the University of Wisconsin, said that with less food available it seems that the Fongoli chimps, “have to be more inventive” and that “these hunting weapons even the playing field for non-adults and females.”
Early hominins may have been in a similar situation, he said.
For the full story, see:
JAMES GORMAN. “Hunter Chimps Offer New View on Evolution.” The New York Times (Fri., APRIL 15, 2015): A10.
(Note: ellipsis added.)
(Note: the online version of the story has the date APRIL 14, 2015, and has the title “Chimps That Hunt Offer a New View on Evolution.”)
The academic article discussed above is:
Pruetz, Jill D., Paco Bertolani, K. Boyer Ontl, S. Lindshield, M. Shelley, and 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 2, no. 4 (Weds., April 15, 2015), URL: http://rsos.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/2/4/140507.abstract .