Digging up food: excavation stone tool use by wild capuchin monkeys
Abstract Capuchin monkeys at Serra da Capivara National Park (SCNP) usually forage on the ground for roots and fossorial arthropods, digging primarily with their hands but also using stone tools to loosen the soil and aid the digging process. Here we describe the stone tools used for digging by two...
Guardado en:
| Autores principales: | , , |
|---|---|
| Formato: | article |
| Lenguaje: | EN |
| Publicado: |
Nature Portfolio
2017
|
| Materias: | |
| Acceso en línea: | https://doaj.org/article/9091765321d94e108539c530cf3d2756 |
| Etiquetas: |
Agregar Etiqueta
Sin Etiquetas, Sea el primero en etiquetar este registro!
|
| Sumario: | Abstract Capuchin monkeys at Serra da Capivara National Park (SCNP) usually forage on the ground for roots and fossorial arthropods, digging primarily with their hands but also using stone tools to loosen the soil and aid the digging process. Here we describe the stone tools used for digging by two groups of capuchins on SCNP. Both groups used tools while digging three main food resources: Thiloa glaucocarpa tubers, Ocotea sp roots, and trapdoor spiders. One explanation for the occurrence of tool use in primates is the “necessity hypothesis”, which states that the main function of tool use is to obtain fallback food. We tested for this, but only found a positive correlation between plant food availability and the frequency of stone tools’ use. Thus, our data do not support the fallback food hypothesis for the use of tools to access burrowed resources. |
|---|