Chimpanzee hurls himself into scientific study
March 10th 2009 17:13
A chimpanzee in a Swedish zoo who calmly collected stones at night and threw them in frenzied attacks on zoo visitors during the day has scientists excited.
When keepers at the Furuvik Zoo, north of Stockholm, discovered that a male chimp named Santino regularly collected and stored stones that he would later use as missiles, scientists were interested because it offered proof of an animal planning ahead. Researchers have been able to gather little evidence of such behaviour.
Even more important in this case was the fact that Santino collected the stones in an apparently calm state and threw them in an agitated state — apparently as part of displays of dominance.
This implies that Santino was anticipating a future mental state, an ability that has been difficult to prove in animals, according to Mathias Osvath, a cognitive scientist from Lund University in Sweden and author of new research based on Santino.
The research has been published in the journal Current Biology.
Planning behaviour like that of Santino is connected to what is termed autonoetic consciousness, where information due to memory can be distinguished from that from the senses.
Dr Osvath has called for other zoos in the world to look for examples of autonoetic consciousness to help research in the area, and has suggested similar behaviour is likely in dolphins and other species.
bbc.co.uk; image: www.solarnavigator.net
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