Capuchin Monkeys Can Retrieve Tasty Termites Better Than Humans
Capuchin Monkeys Can Retrieve Tasty Termites Better Than Humans
Consuming insects has been popular for centuries in most areas of the world. Apparently, termites are among the tastiest of insects. However, since termites are such small and evasive creatures, capturing them can be difficult, but not for capuchin monkeys. Researchers have recently observed these monkeys resorting to a clever method of termite retrieval. This particular technique, which was reported in the Royal Society Biology Letters, must have been discovered by capuchin monkeys only recently. Researchers have never before witnessed any primates using a tool-based technique for capturing termites. In fact, humans belonging to insect-eating cultures have never resorted to this particular technique of extracting termites from their nests. Perhaps capuchin monkeys are more intelligent than humans, as the monkeys technique of termite retrieval seems to be the most effective method yet discovered.
Capuchin monkeys eat insects, spiders, fruit, small vertebrate animals, and sometimes sugarcane. The monkeys are particularly fond of termites, but for the longest time primates have had difficulty with capturing tasty termites. According to the study’s lead author, Antonio Souto, scientists can only speculate as to how these monkeys learned to capture termites. Souto believes that the termite retrieval method was first used by an individual monkey, and then other observant capuchin monkeys began to mimic the behavior. Capuchin monkeys may have been using clever methods to capture termites for a long time, but since these monkeys are endangered it is hard to tell when this behavior began. These monkeys were once considered extinct, and now it is estimated that only one hundred and eighty capuchin monkeys are left in the world.
In the northeastern Brazil Atlantic Forest in the state of Paraiba, scientists noticed that the termite “fishing method” starts when three capuchin monkeys climb several feet high into a tree where termite nests are located. One monkey will approach a nest while another monkey taps on the sides of a termite nest. This tapping alarms the soldier termites. At this point, one of the monkeys will use a small branch in order to penetrate a nest in a circular fashion, like a drill. When a nest is punctured, termites will gather around the hole in an effort to repair it. After a few seconds, one of the monkeys will remove the small branch, which will be covered with numerous termites. The three monkeys then feast on the live termites. The researchers attempted this method themselves, and found that it was effective at retrieving termites. There is no word on whether or not the researchers ate the Brazilian termites.
Do you think that the monkeys rotate the stick like a drill in order to avoid snapping the stick from sudden penetration?