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Macaques use stone tools to crack nuts

2017; Elsevier BV; Volume: 235; Issue: 3142 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1016/s0262-4079(17)31750-5

2059-5387

Colin Barras,

Oil Palm Production and Sustainability

In 2016, Lydia Luncz and her team visited a defunct oil palm plantation on Yao Noi Island. They found stones that seemed to have been used as hammers and anvils, and broken oil palm nuts. The researchers set up camera traps. Over three weeks, the cameras recorded long-tailed macaques in action. The monkeys placed nuts on the stone anvils, then hit them with hammers until they broke, exposing the nutritious kernel. What is remarkable, says Luncz, is that humans only introduced oil palms to the area about 13 years ago.