Tool use by animals
In mammals
Chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes) are sophisticated tool users with behaviors including cracking nuts with stone tools and fishing for ants or termites with sticks. These chimpanzees not only use these sticks to fish out their meal, but they in fact build their own 'tool kits' to do so, as observed in the Republic of Congo. They first use a smaller stick to break open the termite or ant mound, then use a large stick to make holes in the preys colony, and then insert a 'fishing probe' into the hole and pull out all the termites or ants that have gathered on the stick. There are more limited reports of the closely related bonobo (Pan paniscus) using tools in the wild; it has been claimed they rarely use tools in the wild although they use tools as readily as chimpanzees when in captivity, It has been reported that females of both chimpanzees and bonobos use tools more avidly than males. Wild chimpanzees predominantly use tools in the context of food acquisition, while wild bonobos appear to use tools mainly for personal care (cleaning, protection from rain) and social purposes. Wild bonobos have been observed using leaves as cover for rain, or the use of branches in social displays.
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