IT’S a revelation that destroys yet another cherished notion of human uniqueness. Wild chimpanzees in Fongoli, south-east Senegal, hunt vertebrate prey with spears – the first time such behaviour has been recorded in a non-human animal. And in another surprising first, the same population of chimps shelter in caves. The more we observe them, the more chimps seem to surprise us.
“I keep watching for the Fongoli chimps to begin drawing on the wall of the caves,” says Jill Pruetz of Iowa State University in Ames, who led the research.
In the savannah habitat of Fongoli the chimps, Pan troglodytes verus…
