What sets humans apart from other animals is our ability to create culture; however, a new study from the Max Planck Institute of Animal Behavior focusing on chimpanzees is challenging how researchers define culture in the animal kingdom.
Digging deeper into chimpanzee behavior, the new findings indicate that wild chimpanzees learn dozens of everyday behaviors from one another, many of which are essential for survival but have not traditionally been recognized as “cultural.”
The study took place in the Budongo Forest region at the Budongo Conservation Field Station in Uganda. Over two years, the team followed 28 wild chimpanzees of different ages, recording more than 1,000 hours of detailed observations of their daily behavior.
“Animal culture doesn’t have to be rare or complex. It can include basic skills used every day, like finding food and knowing how to eat it,” says first author Nora Slania from the Max Planck Institute of Animal Behavior in a statement.
Researchers focused on a behavior called “peering,” in which one chimpanzee closely watches another’s actions. This attention-based learning technique has been studied in other primates, but its broader role in chimpanzee cultural transmission had not been fully explored. The team documented 366 instances of peering and found that chimpanzees selectively observed others during important learning moments, such as when acquiring complex or rare skills.
“In humans, our everyday lives are full of culture, including the way we speak, dress, or eat. We don’t require behaviors to be especially remarkable or independent of our environment,” says Dr. Caroline Schuppli, senior author of the study.
“Animals, however, have long been held to stricter standards. By adopting a more inclusive view of culture—and standards more comparable to those applied to humans—future research may reveal that many animals possess richer cultures than previously recognized,” she adds.
During the long-term observations, the research team identified 69 distinct behaviors that chimpanzees appeared to learn socially. Surprisingly, only a small subset of those behaviors would have been classified as cultural under previous definitions. Most of the observed activities involved feeding, grooming, playing, and basic environmental exploration.
One of the study’s most important findings involved the central role food plays in chimpanzee culture. Around 60% of the observed behaviors involved identifying, processing, or consuming plant foods such as fruits and leaves. These observations suggest chimpanzees rely not only on instinct, but also on social learning through “peering” to locate and process food sources.
Notable researchers such as Jane Goodall previously linked chimpanzee culture primarily to tool use, identifying 39 cultural behaviors across chimpanzee populations. However, the new findings suggest that a narrower definition may have underestimated the true scale of cultural learning in chimpanzees.
“The fact that so much of a chimpanzee’s diet is socially learned highlights how important social learning is for their development,” Schuppli said in a statement.
“While some behaviors may be simple and learned quickly, acquiring the full range of their culture still takes young chimpanzees many years,” she adds.
These everyday practices are very similar to human culture, like eating habits, communication styles, and social norms. The study proposes that chimpanzee culture is more continuous and embedded in daily life than previously recognized.
“Behavior allows animals to respond flexibly to the world around them, and cultural transmission offers a fast way to learn new behaviors. Ultimately, understanding the full scope of animal culture will help us protect the diverse ways these species adapt to changing environments,” Slania added
This study was previously published in iScience.
Chrissy Newton is a PR professional and the founder of VOCAB Communications. She currently appears on The Discovery Channel and Max and hosts the Rebelliously Curious podcast, which can be found on YouTube and on all audio podcast streaming platforms. Follow her on X: @ChrissyNewton, Instagram: @BeingChrissyNewton, and chrissynewton.com. To contact Chrissy with a story, please email chrissy @ thedebrief.org.