William C Mcgrew

University of St Andrews · School of Psychology and Neuroscience

We respond to the commentary by Tennie and Call (2023) on the article by Koops et al. (2022) in Nature Human Behaviour titled ‘Field experiments find no evidence that chimpanzee nut cracking can be independently innovated.’ Koops et al. (2022) showed that chimpanzee nut cracking is not a so-called ‘latent solution.’ Chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes ver...

Book review

Book review

Novels about great apes and humans continue to be consistently popular with the reading public, sometimes reaching best-seller status. Media reviews of these books rarely comment on their primatological roots, nor do primatological journals review them. In a non-quantitative, pilot study, I scrutinize six prominent novels, in terms of three questio...

Findings from field primatology show that three living primate genera—ape ( Pan ), Old World monkey ( Macaca ), and New World monkey ( Sapajus )—use elementary lithic technology to obtain and process food in nature. All three taxa use stone tools, producing enduring artifacts with distinctive archaeological signatures. In a comparison we show that...

The Oxford Handbook of the Archaeology of Diet aims to provide a survey of both the diversity of human diet in the past as well as providing solid information on the many approaches to the topic. Thus the aim was not just to present what we know, but how we gain that understanding. The first section presents research on the diets of non-human prima...

Cumulative culture, generally known as the increasing complexity or efficiency of cultural behaviors additively transmitted over successive generations, has been emphasized as a hallmark of human evolution. Recently, reviews of candidates for cumulative culture in nonhuman species have claimed that only humans have cumulative culture. Here, we aim...

Since its inception, archaeology has traditionally focused exclusively on humans and our direct ancestors. However, recent years have seen archaeological techniques applied to material evidence left behind by non-human animals. Here, we review advances made by the most prominent field investigating past non-human tool use: primate archaeology. This...

Non-dietary aspects of ape scats such as scat weight and diameter are correlated with age and sex of defaecator for gorillas and orangutans. Defaecation rates of primates, including apes, illuminate their role as primary seed dispersers. We assess if non-dietary features of scats for East African chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes schweinfurthii) reveal...

Grooming hand clasp is a behavioral pattern shown by chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes) and appears to be a rare example of a social custom, and thus is an indicator of nonhuman culture. It is a striking variant of normal social grooming, shown in some populations of these apes but not in others. In addition to its hygienic function, it may signal usefu...

Scat (faeces) decay rate estimates are used to calculate animal species abundance and density. For African great apes, this has been measured only for Gorilla; chimpanzee scats are assumed to decay at a faster rate due to lower fibre content. We provide the first systematic measure of scat decay rate duration for Pan troglodytes schweinfurthii, in...

We describe behaviors of unhabituated wild chimpanzees in Gabon during repeated encounters with large mirrors installed permanently in their home range. Movement in proximity to the mirrors triggered video cameras that recorded the scene. Data are presented for 51 mirror encounters spanning a 3-year period. After initial wariness, mirror-directed a...

Field studies done over decades of wild chimpanzees in East, Central and West Africa have yielded impressive, cumulative findings in cultural primatology. Japanese primatologists have been involved in this advance from the outset, over a wide variety of topics. Here I review the origins and development of field studies of Pan troglodytes, then asse...

Producing single versus multiple births has important life history trade-offs, including the potential benefits and risks of sharing a common in utero environment. Sex hormones can diffuse through amniotic fluid and fetal membranes, and females with male littermates risk exposure to high levels of fetal testosterone, which are shown to have masculi...

When carrying objects, nonhuman primates often show bipedal locomotion. Studies of primate bipedality, however, in both nature and captivity, have concentrated on locomotion on horizontal substrates, either terrestrially or arboreally. No observational or experimental study seems to have looked at non-horizontal bipedality, yet we show here that it...

Inclusion of osteological material in primatological research has a long history, and use of skeletal remains continues to be important in anatomical and anthropological research. Here we report a set of proven methods, including equipment, protocol, and procedure, which enable relatively simple acquisition of skeletal material from naturally decea...

African apes and humans share a genetic mutation that enables them to effectively metabolize ethanol. However, voluntary ethanol consumption in this evolutionary radiation is documented only in modern humans. Here, we report evidence of the long-term and recurrent ingestion of ethanol from the raffia palm (Raphia hookeri, Arecaceae) by wild chimpan...

Table S1. The % ABV of palm sap from 16 raffia palms, collected at 2-hr intervals (i.e. 08:00-18.00 h) throughout the day. Table S2. Palm wine drinking sessions and events by chimpanzees, including date, start time, chimpanzee name, age (yr) and sex of imbiber, palm wine drinking duration (min), quantity of palm wine consumed (l), leaf dip rate (di...

We are in a new epoch, the Anthropocene, and research into our closest living relatives, the great apes, must keep pace with the rate that our species is driving change. While a goal of many studies is to understand how great apes behave in natural contexts, the impact of human activities must increasingly be taken into account. This is both a chal...

We are in a new epoch, the Anthropocene, and research into our closest living relatives, the great apes, must keep pace with the rate that our species is driving change. While a goal of many studies is to understand how great apes behave in natural contexts, the impact of human activities must increasingly be taken into account. This is both a chal...

Controversy surrounds the claim that non-humans are culture-bearing creatures, yet the field of cultural primatology continues to progress. Using the chimpanzee as an example, this essay recounts the historical background to cultural primatology and its stage-wise development from natural history to ethnography to ethnology. First, it summarises th...

SUMMARY Cross-species infection among humans, chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes) and baboons (Papio spp.) is potentially a significant public health issue in Africa, and of concern in the conservation of P. troglodytes. However, to date, no statistical comparisons have been made between the prevalence, richness and composition of parasite communities in...

It has long been assumed that stone tool making was a major factor in the evolution of derived hominin hand morphology. However, stresses on the hand associated with food retrieval and processing also have been recognized as relevant early hominin behaviors that should be investigated. To this end, chimpanzee food manipulation was videotaped in the...

Chimpanzees are renowned for their use of foraging tools in harvesting social insects and some populations use tools to prey on aggressive army ants (Dorylus spp.). Tool use in army ant predation varies across chimpanzee study sites with differences in tool length, harvesting technique, and army ant species targeted. However, surprisingly little is...

Snakes are presumed to be hazards to primates, including humans, by the snake detection hypothesis (Isbell in J Hum Evol 51:1-35, 2006; Isbell, The fruit, the tree, and the serpent. Why we see so well, 2009). Quantitative, systematic data to test this idea are lacking for the behavioural ecology of living great apes and human foragers. An alternati...

ISSN 1884-7528

In intact, mosaic ecosystems, chimpanzees are sympatric with a wide range of other mammals, which may be predators, prey, or competitors. We delve beyond the nominal data of species lists to interval-level data on 35 medium-bodied and large-bodied mammals encountered at a hot, dry, and open field site in far West Africa. Frequency of encounter, hab...

Non-human primates using stones in nature provide a rare opportunity to compare directly the behaviour of use with the resulting lithic artifacts. Wild Japanese macaques (Macaca fuscata) customarily do "stone handling" (SH = spontaneous, solitary, non-instrumental and seemingly playful manipulation of stones). Ten populations of monkeys show at lea...

Macroscopic inspection of feces has been used to investigate primate diet. The limitations of this method to identify food-items to species level have long been recognized, but ascertaining aspects of diet (e.g., folivory) are achievable by quantifying food-items in feces. Quantification methods applied include rating food-items using a scale of ab...

A review of the book “Love Times Three: Our True Story of a Polygamous Marriage” by Joe Darger, Alina Darger, Vicki Darger, Valerie Darger and Brooke Adams (2011).

INTRODUCTION Fission-fusion is the species-typical and universal social organisation of Pan troglodytes, as recognised 45 years ago by the pioneering field research of such researchers as Goodall (1968), Nishida (1968) and Sugiyama (1968). In fission-fusion, the group (or community), sub-divides into temporary parties, which may further fragment or...

We report ecological and ethological data collected opportunistically and intermittently on unhabituated patas monkeys at Mt. Assirik, Senegal, over 44 months. Although unsystematic and preliminary, these data represent the most ever presented on far western populations of the West African subspecies (Erythrocebus patas patas). Patas monkeys at Ass...

The chimpanzee (Pan troglodytes) is well-known in both nature and captivity as an impressive maker and user of tools, but recently the New Caledonian crow (Corvus moneduloides) has been championed as being equivalent or superior to the ape in elementary technology. I systematically compare the two taxa, going beyond simple presence/absence scoring...

Ascertaining the full range of dietary constituents of a primate population allows the identification of habitats with important food resources and can assist efforts to conserve primates. For unhabituated populations, we can acquire otherwise unobtainable dietary information from macroscopic inspection of fecal samples. This method has made a sign...

INTRODUCTION The wild chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes schweinfurthii) of Toro–Semliki Wildlife Reserve, Uganda, are the only population of wild apes yet reported to dig wells for drinking water 1 . They dig holes by hand in sandy riverbeds, then drink the water collected there by mouth or with 'sponges' made of leaves. We previously reported that the...

Is human handedness unique? That is, do our nearest living relations, chimpanzee and bonobo (Pan spp.) show species-wide handedness, as is seen in living Homo sapiens? The answer may depend on definition: Handedness (congruence across subjects and across tasks) should be distinguished from hand preference (within subject and task), manual specializ...

The last decade has witnessed remarkable discoveries and advances in our understanding of the tool using behaviour of animals. Wild populations of capuchin monkeys have been observed to crack open nuts with stone tools, similar to the skills of chimpanzees and humans. Corvids have been observed to use and make tools that rival in complexity the beh...

Geographical variation in behaviour may be best explained in terms of culture if ecological and genetic explanations can be excluded. However, ecological conditions and genetic predispositions may in turn also affect cultural processes. We examined the influence of environmental factors on foraging tool use among chimpanzees at the Seringbara study...

INTRODUCTION The importance of throwing has figured consistently and prominently in scenarios about the evolutionary origins of human behaviour 1,2 The utility of imparting force to airborne projectile weapons, launched ballistically, is obvious, whether to deter, punish or subdue predators, prey, or competitors. Other functions of throwing are les...

Studies of gastrointestinal parasite prevalence in Papio have either focused on a single troop or compared prevalence among troops that share migrants but differ in degree of human contact. Little is known about the extent of variation in prevalence where obvious factors that may drive prevalence (e.g., human contact) are absent, so it is difficult...