How chimps teach their kids tool tricks

Adult chimpanzees teach offspring to use tools by modeling the behavior and then handing the tools to the young for practice, a process described as food or tool transfer. The study, published in Frontiers in Psychology, shows that mothers are the primary teachers, and that this transfer helps juveniles learn to extract hard-to-reach foods. The paper highlights that such teaching parallels observation and supervised practice, extending the known repertoire of chimp tool use.