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[Ritchie & Ron Laymon <laymon.1 AT osu.edu>]

'Armed' chimps go wild for honey
By Rebecca Morelle
Science reporter, BBC News

Cameras have revealed how "armed" chimpanzees raid beehives to gorge  
on sweet honey.

Scientists in the Republic of Congo found that the wild primates  
crafted large clubs from branches to pound the nests until they broke  
open.

The team said some chimps would also use a "toolkit" of different  
wooden implements in a bid to access the honey and satisfy their sweet  
tooth.

The study is published in the International Journal of Primatology.

Crickette Sanz, from the Max Planck Institute of Evolutionary  
Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany, said: "The nutritional returns don't  
seem to be that great.

"But their excitement when they've succeeded is incredible, you can  
see how much they are enjoying tasting the honey."

Honey monsters

Chimps' love of honey and their ingenuity at accessing it are well  
known amongst primatologists - previous studies have revealed how the  
great apes can fashion sticks to dip into or prise open nests.

“ The chimps will go up there and hang at all sorts of precarious  
angles to get to the honey ”
Crickette Sanz
But until now, nobody realised how prevalent the beehive-bashing  
behaviour was amongst chimpanzees in the Goualougo Triangle in the  
Congo Basin.

Dr Sanz said: "It seems these chimps in central Africa have developed  
more sophisticated techniques for getting at the honey than  
populations in eastern and western Africa - maybe it is some kind of  
regional feature."

Perhaps for obvious reasons, the chimps avoided bee species that  
sting, targeting the hives of stingless bees instead.

Dr Sanz told the BBC: "But these nests are tough to get into - they  
can be at the top of the forest canopy, at the end of a branch - and  
the chimps will go up there and hang at all sorts of precarious angles  
to get to the honey, using these clubs in any way that they can to  
access it."

The video footage, which was filmed by the researchers over four  
years, revealed the chimps' sheer determination to get at the sweet  
stuff.

Dr Sanz explained: "Nobody knew they would pound over 1,000 times to  
get to the honey.

"Sometimes it could take several hours - they would start in the  
morning at around 1000, then take some rests, and then finish up at  
about 1400 or 1500 in the afternoon.

"It is quite physically challenging - in the videos you can see how  
large those pounding clubs are - some weigh over a kilogram."


The primatologists also found that the Congo chimps' tool use was more  
sophisticated than previously thought.

David Morgan, a co-author on the study from the Wildlife Conservation  
Society and Chicago's Lincoln Park Zoo, said: "One of the most  
exciting aspects is that they are using multiple tools to access the  
honey that is in these hives.

"They have a tool kit ready when they go for honey.

"They will have large pounding clubs and they'll use those to hammer  
the hives.

"And if that doesn't do, if the holes are too small, then they'll  
access them using smaller, thinner dipping wands. And they are also  
using smaller sticks for leverage to get better access to the hive."

The researchers also said that once the chimps had spotted and then  
crafted a suitable club from a branch, by pulling off unwanted twigs  
and leaves with their teeth or hands, they would set it aside for  
later use.

Dr Morgan said: "They cache them in the canopy."

Last week, the same team also reported how Goualougo Triangle chimps  
were crafting fishing rods with a brush-tipped end to fish for  
termites, and the scientists say there is still much to learn about  
tool use in these chimps.

However, they told the BBC that the chimps' future was uncertain, as  
the primates and their habitat were under threat.

Dr Morgan said: "These beehives are found in tree species that are  
exploited for logging, so this could be a direct affect we have on  
their behaviour, their feeding and their conservation."

Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/science/nature/7946614.stm

Published: 2009/03/18 11:06:38 GMT

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