Abstract
There is abundant evidence that allows us to consider wild tufted capuchin monkeys’ toolkits as behavioural traditions. Developmental studies show that infants’ interest in nutcracking and adults’ tolerance of scrounging enhance opportunities for social learning. Field experiments have examined the socially mediated diffusion of new behaviours. The difference between forest populations’ lack of customary tool use and the typical savannah toolkit—including stone “hammers” for nutcracking—seems sufficiently explained by terrestriality. By contrast, the narrower distribution of customary use of tools for probing cannot be accounted for by distinct diets or environmental affordances. Opportunities for social learning may be framed in Niche Construction theory, as social diffusion may depend on the conspicuousness and permanence of tools and leftovers. This is the case for nutcracking, which is highly conspicuous, leaves lasting environmental changes, and frequently allows delayed scrounging (enabling direct observation and delayed stimulus enhancement). The use of stick probes, however, creates fewer opportunities for social learning: the events are quick and less conspicuous, scrounging opportunities are minimal, and there are no lasting “tool use sites”. This may explain the observed distribution of probe use: the lesser the role of environmental niche construction, the greater the role of social dynamics in the diffusion of innovations and the establishment of traditions.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Notes
- 1.
The “cerrado” is a tropical, wet savanna covering an extensive area in the plateaus of central Brazil, with semi-humid climate, exhibiting a mosaic of vegetation types, from grassy “campos” with a few trees, to areas with more extensive canopy cover (“cerradão”) and denser “gallery forests” along rivers.
- 2.
The “caatinga” is a dryer, desert-like, and very seasonal kind of savanna in interior north-eastern Brazil, with dry winters and wet summers, which vegetation includes xeric shrubland, cacti and small, thorny trees that lose all leaves during the dry season, and semi-deciduous forests in hill slopes and near rivers. There are extensive transition areas (“ecotones”) between “cerrado’ and “caatinga” areas.
- 3.
Selected from 20 localities we got reports of nutcracking from local inhabitants (the other ten localities were not surveyed due to logistic issues, such as authorizations or availability of local guides).
- 4.
- 5.
- 6.
In our field experiments on probe tool use (Cardoso and Ottoni 2016), on the other hand, there were indeed opportunities for tool reuse.
References
Anderson JR (1990) Use of objects as hammers to open nuts by capuchin monkeys (Cebus apella). Folia Primatol 54:138–145. https://doi.org/10.1159/000156437
Antinucci R, Visalberghi E (1986) Tool use in Cebus apella: a case study. Int J Primatol 7:351–363. https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02693700
Canale GR, Guidorizzi CE, Kierulff MCM, Gatto CAFR (2009) First record of tool use by wild populations of the yellow-breasted capuchin monkey (Cebus xanthosternos) and new records for the bearded capuchin (Cebus libidinosus). Am J Primatol 71:366–372. https://doi.org/10.1002/ajp.20648
Cardoso RM, Ottoni EB (2016) The effects of tradition on problem solving by two wild populations of bearded capuchin monkeys in a probing task. Biol Lett 12:20160604. https://doi.org/10.1098/rsbl.2016.0604
Chevalier-Skolnikoff S (1989) Spontaneous tool use and sensorimotor intelligence in Cebus compared with other monkeys and apes. Behav Brain Sci 12:561–627. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0140525X00057678
Coelho CG, Falótico T, Izar P, Mannu M, Resende BD, Siqueira JO, Ottoni EB (2015) Social learning strategies for nut-cracking by tufted capuchin monkeys (Sapajus spp.). Anim Cogn 18:911–919. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10071-015-0861-5
Corat C, Siqueira J, Ottoni EB (2016) Sequential organization and optimization of the nut-cracking behavior of semi-free tufted capuchin monkeys (Sapajus sp.). Primates 57:113–121. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10329-015-0491-1
Derex M, Beugin M, Godelle B, Raymond M (2013) Experimental evidence for the influence of group size on cultural complexity. Nature 503:389–391. https://doi.org/10.1038/nature12774
Falótico T, Ottoni EB (2005) Experimento de escolha de ferramentas para a quebra de cocos por macacos-prego (Cebus apella) em semi-liberdade. Anais do XI Congresso Brasileiro de Primatologia (Porto Alegre, Brazil), p 98
Falótico T, Ottoni EB (2013) Stone throwing as a sexual display in wild female bearded capuchin monkeys, Sapajus libidinosus. PLoS ONE 8:e79535. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0079535
Falótico T, Ottoni EB (2014) Sexual bias in probe tool manufacture and use by wild bearded capuchin monkeys. Behav Process 108:117–122. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.beproc.2014.09.036
Falótico T, Ottoni EB (2016) The manifold use of pounding stone tools by wild capuchin monkeys of Serra da Capivara National Park, Brazil. Behaviour 153:421–442. https://doi.org/10.1163/1568539X-00003357
Falótico T, Siqueira JO, Ottoni EB (2017) Digging up food: excavation stone tool use by wild capuchin monkeys. Sci Rep 7:6278. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-017-06541-0
Falótico T, Proffitt T, Ottoni EB, Staff RA, Haslam M (2019) Three thousand years of wild capuchin stone tool use. Nat Ecol Evol 3:1034–1038. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41559-019-0904-4
Fernandes M (1991) Tool use and predation of oysters (Crassostrea rhizophorae) by the tufted capuchin, Cebus apella apella, in brackish water mangrove swamp. Primates 32:529–531. https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02381944
Ferreira RG, Emidio RA, Jerusalinsky L (2009) Three stones for three seeds: natural occurrence of selective tool use by capuchins (Cebus libidinosus) based on an analysis of the weight of stones found at nutting sites. Am J Primatol 71:1–6. https://doi.org/10.1002/ajp.20771
Fox EA, Sitompul AF, Van Schaik CP (1999) Intelligent tool use in wild Sumatran orangutans. In: Parker ST, Mitchell RW, Miles HL (eds) The mentalities of gorillas and orangutans: comparative perspectives. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, pp 99–116. https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511542305.005
Fragaszy D (2003) Making space for traditions. Evol Anthropol 12:61–70. https://doi.org/10.1002/evan.10104
Fragaszy DM, Visalberghi E (1989) Social influences on the acquisition of tool-using behaviors in tufted capuchin monkeys (Cebus apella). J Comp Psychol 103:159–170. https://doi.org/10.1037/0735-7036.103.2.159
Fragaszy DM, Visalberghi E (2001) Recognizing a swan: socially biased learning. Psychologia 44:82–98. https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03196004
Fragaszy DM, Izar P, Visalberghi E, Ottoni EB, Oliveira M (2004a) Wild capuchin monkeys use anvils and stone pounding tools. Am J Primatol 64:359–366. https://doi.org/10.1002/ajp.20085
Fragaszy DM, Visalberghi E, Fedigan LM (2004b) The complete capuchin: the biology of the genus Cebus. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge
Fragaszy DM, Biro D, Eshchar Y, Humle T, Izar P, Resende B, Visalberghi E (2013) The fourth dimension of tool use: temporally enduring artefacts aid primates learning to use tools. Phil Trans R Soc B 368:410. https://doi.org/10.1098/rstb.2012.0410
Fujita K, Kuroshima H, Asai S (2003) How do tufted capuchin monkeys (Cebus apella) understand causality involved in tool use? J Exp Psychol 29:233–242. https://doi.org/10.1037/0097-7403.29.3.233
Fujita K, Tsutsumi S, Morimoto Y, Coelho CG, Falótico T, Ottoni EB (2007) Substrate choice in nut-cracking behavior of semi-wild tufted capuchin monkeys (Cebus apella). In: Abstracts of the XXVIII International Ethology Conference (Florianopolis, Brazil), pp 8–10
Fujita K, Sato Y, Kuroshima H (2011) Learning and generalization of tool use by tufted capuchin monkeys (Cebus apella) in tasks involving three factors: reward, tool, and hindrance. J Exp Psychol 37:10–19. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0020274
Gibson JJ (2015) The ecological approach to visual perception. Psychology Press, New York
Giraldeau LA, Beauchamp G (1999) Food exploitation: searching for the optimal joining policy. Trends Ecol Evol 14:102–106. https://doi.org/10.1016/s0169-5347(98)01542-0
Giraldeau LA, Lefebrve L (1987) Scrounging prevents cultural transmission of food-finding behaviour in pigeons. Anim Behav 35:387–394. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0003-3472(87)80262-2
Goodall J (1971) Tool-using in primates and other vertebrates. Adv Study Behav 3:195–249. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0065-3454(08)60157-6
Gruber T, Muller MN, Strimling P, Wrangham R, Zuberbühler K (2009) Wild chimpanzees rely on cultural knowledge to solve an experimental honey acquisition task. Curr Biol 19:1806–1810. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cub.2009.08.060
Haslam M, Falótico T (2015) Nasal probe and toothpick tool use by a wild female bearded capuchin (Sapajus libidinosus). Primates 56:211. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10329-015-0470-6
Haslam M, Luncz LV, Staff RA, Bradshaw F, Ottoni EB, Falótico T (2016) Pre-Columbian monkey tools. Curr Biol 26:R515–R522. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cub.2016.05.046
Henrich J (2004) Demography and cultural evolution: how adaptive cultural processes can produce maladaptive losses: the Tasmanian case. Am Antiq 69:197–214. https://doi.org/10.2307/4128416
Henrich J, Gil-White FJ (2001) The evolution of prestige: freely conferred deference as a mechanism for enhancing the benefits of cultural transmission. Evol Hum Behav 22(3):165–196. https://doi.org/10.1016/S1090-5138(00)00071-4
Humle T, Matsuzawa T (2002) Ant-dipping among the chimpanzees of Bossou, Guinea, and some comparisons with other sites. Am J Primatol 58:133–148. https://doi.org/10.1002/ajp.10055
Inoue-Nakamura N, Matsuzawa T (1997) Development of stone tool use by wild chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes). J Comp Psychol 111:159–173. https://doi.org/10.1037/0735-7036.111.2.159
Izar P, Verderane MP, Peternelli-dos-Santos L, Mendonça-Furtado O, Presotto A, Tokuda M, Visalberghi E, Fragaszy D (2011) Flexible and conservative features of social systems in tufted capuchin monkeys: comparing the socioecology of Sapajus libidinosus and Sapajus nigritus. Am J Primatol 73:1–17. https://doi.org/10.1002/ajp.20968
Izawa K, Mizuno A (1977) Palm-fruit cracking behavior of wild black-capped capuchin (Cebus apella). Primates 18:773–792. https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02382930
Koops K, Visalberghi E, van Schaik CP (2014) The ecology of primate material culture. Biol Lett 10:20140508. https://doi.org/10.1098/rsbl.2014.0508
Laland KN (2004) Social learning strategies. Learn Behav 32:4–14. https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03196002
Laland KN, Hoppitt W (2003) Do animals have culture? Evol Anthropol 12:150–159. https://doi.org/10.1002/evan.10111
Laland KN, Odling-Smee J, Feldman MW (2000) Niche construction, biological evolution, and cultural change. Behav Brain Sci 23:131–175. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0140525X00002417
Malaivijitnond S, Lekprayoon C, Tandavanittj N, Panha S, Cheewatham C, Hamada Y (2007) Stone-tool usage by Thai long-tailed macaques (Macaca fascicularis). Am J Primatol 69:227–233. https://doi.org/10.1002/ajp.20342
Mannu M, Ottoni EB (2009) The enhanced tool-kit of two groups of wild bearded capuchin monkeys in the Caatinga: tool making, associative use, and secondary tools. Am J Primatol 71:242–251. https://doi.org/10.1002/ajp.20642
McGrew WC (1992) Chimpanzee material culture: implications for human evolution. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge
McGrew WC (2004) The cultured chimpanzee: reflections on cultural primatology. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge
McGrew WC, Falotico T, Gumert MD, Ottoni EB (2019) A simian view of the Oldowan: reconstructing the evolutionary origins of human technology. Ch.1 (pp.13–41) in Overmann KA and Coolidge FL (Eds.), Squeezing Minds from Stones: Cognitive Archaeology and the Evolution of the Human Mind [ISBN:9780190854614]. Oxford University Press, UK
Mendes FDC, Cardoso RM, Ottoni EB, Izar P, Villar DNA, Marquezan RF (2015) Diversity of nutcracking tool sites used by Sapajus libidinosus in Brazilian cerrado. Am J Primatol 77:535–546. https://doi.org/10.1002/ajp.22373
Moura ACA, Lee P (2004) Capuchin stone tool use in caatinga dry forest. Science 306:9. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.1102558
Moura ACA, Lee P (2010) Wild capuchins show male-biased feeding tool use. Int J Primatol 31:457–470. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10764-010-9406-6
Musgrave S, Morgan D, Lonsdorf E, Mundry R, Sanz C (2016) Tool transfers are a form of teaching among chimpanzees. Sci Rep 6:34783. https://doi.org/10.1038/srep34783
Ottoni EB, Izar P (2008) Capuchin monkey tool use: overview and implications. Evol Anthropol 17:171–178. https://doi.org/10.1002/evan.20185
Ottoni EB, Mannu M (2001) Semifree-ranging tufted capuchins (Cebus apella) spontaneously use tools to crack open nuts. Int J Primatol 22:347–358. https://doi.org/10.1023/A%3A1010747426841
Ottoni EB, Rufo HP (2019) Experimentally induced diffusion of probe tool use in a group of tufted capuchin monkeys (Sapajus sp). In: Abstracts of the behaviour 2019 conference, Chicago, IL, USA
Ottoni EB, Resende BD, Izar P (2005) Watching the best nutcrackers: what capuchin monkeys (Cebus apella) know about others’ tool using skills. Anim Cogn 8:215–219. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10071-004-0245-8
Ottoni EB, Coelho CG, Kendal R (2016) Experimental evidence for social learning in wild bearded capuchin monkeys (Sapajus libidinosus) inhabiting the Serra da Capivara National Park, Brazil. In: Abstracts of the joint meeting of the International Primatological Society and the American Society of Primatologists, Chicago, IL, USA
Pascual-Garrido A (2017) Termite fishing by Mahale chimpanzees: revisited, decades later. Pan Afr News 24:15–19
Ramsey G, Bastian ML, van Schaik C (2007) Animal innovation defined and operationalized. Behav Brain Sci 30:393–437. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0140525X07002373
Reader SM, Laland KN (2003) Animal innovation: an introduction. In: Reader SM, Laland KN (eds) Animal innovation. Oxford University Press, Oxford, pp 3–35
Resende BD, Ottoni EB, Fragaszy DM (2008) Ontogeny of manipulative behavior and nut-cracking in young tufted capuchin monkeys (Cebus apella): a perception–action perspective. Dev Sci 11:812–824. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-7687.2008.00731.x
Richerson PJ, Boyd R (1985) Culture and the evolutionary process. The University of Chicago Press, Chicago
Santos R, Sousa A, Fragaszy D, Ferreira R (2019) The role of tools in the feeding ecology of bearded capuchins living in mangroves. In: Nowak K, Barnett A, Matsuda I (eds) Primates in flooded habitats: ecology and conservation. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, pp 59–63
Schrauf C, Huber L, Visalberghi E (2008) Do capuchin monkeys use weight to select hammer tools? Anim Cogn 11:413–422. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10071-007-0131-2
Schuppli C, Van Schaik C (2019) Animal cultures: how we’ve only seen the tip of the iceberg. Evol Hum Sci 1:E2. https://doi.org/10.1017/ehs.2019.1
Silva EDR (2008) Escolha de alvos coespecíficos na observação do uso de ferramentas por macacos-prego (Cebus libidinosus) selvagens. Unpublished master’s dissertation, University of São Paulo
Spagnoletti N, Visalberghi E, Verderane MP, Ottoni EB, Izar P, Fragaszy D (2012) Stone tool use in wild bearded capuchin monkeys (Cebus libidinosus): is it a strategy to overcome food scarcity? Anim Behav 83:1285–1294. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.anbehav.2012.03.002
van Schaik CP, Fox EA, Sitompul AE (1996) Manufacture and use of tools in wild Sumatran orangutans: implications for human evolution. Naturwissenschaften 83:186–188. https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01143062
Visalberghi E (1990) Tool use in Cebus. Folia Primatol 54:146–154. https://doi.org/10.1159/000156438
Visalberghi E, Limongelli L (1994) Lack of comprehension of cause-effect relations in tool-using capuchin monkeys (Cebus apella). J Comp Psychol 108:15–22. https://doi.org/10.1037/0735-7036.108.1.15
Visalberghi E, Fragaszy DM, Izar P, Ottoni EB (2005) Terrestriality and tool use. Science 308:951. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.308.5724.951c
Visalberghi E, Addessi E, Truppa V, Spagnoletti N, Ottoni EB, Izar P, Fragaszy D (2009) Selection of effective stone tools by wild bearded capuchin monkeys. Curr Biol 19:213–217. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cub.2008.11.064
Westergaard GC, Fragaszy DM (1987) The manufacture and use of tools by capuchin monkeys (Cebus apella). J Comp Psychol 101:159–168. https://doi.org/10.1037/0735-7036.101.2.159
Whiten A, Goodall J, McGrew WC, Nishida T, Reynolds V, Sugiyama T, Wrangham RW, Boesch C (1999) Cultures in chimpanzees. Nature 399:682–685. https://doi.org/10.1038/21415
Wynn T, McGrew WC (1989) An ape’s view of the Oldowan. Man 24(3):383–398
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2021 Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd.
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Ottoni, E.B. (2021). The Lasting and the Passing: Behavioural Traditions and Opportunities for Social Learning in Wild Tufted Capuchin Monkeys. In: Anderson, J.R., Kuroshima, H. (eds) Comparative Cognition. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-16-2028-7_10
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-16-2028-7_10
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Singapore
Print ISBN: 978-981-16-2027-0
Online ISBN: 978-981-16-2028-7
eBook Packages: Biomedical and Life SciencesBiomedical and Life Sciences (R0)