Author(s):
Hockings, Kimberley 
; Humle, Tatyana ; Anderson, James ; Biro, Dora ; Sousa, Cláudia ; Ohashi, Gaku ; Matsuzawa, Tetsuro
Date: 2007
Persistent ID: http://hdl.handle.net/10362/2609
Origin: Repositório Institucional da UNL
Subject(s): Chimpanzees; Social Tools; Culture; Food
Description
PLoS ONE - www.plosone.org, V.9, e886 The sharing of wild plant foods is infrequent in chimpanzees, but in chimpanzee communities that engage in hunting, meat is
frequently used as a ‘social tool’ for nurturing alliances and social bonds. Here we report the only recorded example of regular
sharing of plant foods by unrelated, non-provisioned wild chimpanzees, and the contexts in which these sharing behaviours
occur. From direct observations, adult chimpanzees at Bossou (Republic of Guinea, West Africa) very rarely transferred wild
plant foods. In contrast, they shared cultivated plant foods much more frequently (58 out of 59 food sharing events). Sharing
primarily consists of adult males allowing reproductively cycling females to take food that they possess. We propose that
hypotheses focussing on ‘food-for-sex and -grooming’ and ‘showing-off’ strategies plausibly account for observed sharing
behaviours. A changing human-dominated landscape presents chimpanzees with fresh challenges, and our observations
suggest that crop-raiding provides adult male chimpanzees at Bossou with highly desirable food commodities that may be
traded for other currencies.
