Saturday, November 6, 2010

Females better with tools?

Females better with tools?: "

bonobo tool use Lola ya bonobo sanctuaryMen are supposedly handier with a screwdriver, but not in our closest living relatives, bonobos. Apparently the females use tools more frequently and flexibly than the males, and use tools for a wide range of activities.

Researchers Thibaud Gruber and Klaus Zuberbühler at St Andrews University recently published their findings from Lola ya Bonobo Sanctuary in Congo. The findings are interesting because wild bonobos have not been seen to use tools as often or as flexibly as their chimpanzee relatives. One hypothesis for this is that the bonobo environment is so rich in food, that they don't need to use tools. But at the sanctuary, there was a wide range of tool use, including digging, using tools to reach objects, nutcracking, and cleaning their teeth...

Female chimps also tend to be better at tool use than male chimps. If both female bonobos and chimps are better at tool use than males, I wonder where the learned helplessness of human females comes from. I'm the first to call my husband to open a jar or put up a curtain rod. Hmm... when my IKEA set comes in, I'm going to build it myself...

One way the bonobos were using the tools that chimps haven't discovered yet is for sexual stimulation - the evolution of the vibrator, perhaps?

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