Wild Chimpanzees Teach Their Young by Handing Over Tools

When you think of teaching, a classroom full of humans might be the first image that pops into mind. Yet deep in the forests of Senegal, a different kind of lesson is taking place, one that involves sticks, leaves and a lot of patience.

Researchers from the University of Barcelona spent eight years analyzing about 15 hours of video captured by hidden cameras around the Jane Goodall Institute’s Dindefelo field station. What they saw was surprisingly straightforward: adult chimpanzees deliberately handing tools to younger relatives, then waiting – sometimes impatiently – as the youngsters tried to make sense of the objects.

In total, the team documented 33 clear instances of tool transfer. Nineteen of those happened while the chimps were dipping sticks into army‑ant nests, ten during algae‑fishing sessions, and four while extracting termites. Most of the time the “teacher” was a close family member, and in almost a third of the cases a mother was the one passing the stick to her baby.

One particularly vivid clip shows a mother named Soukki inserting a thin branch into an ant mound, then pulling her daughter Saïsaï close and nudging the branch into her little hands. The infant pulls it out, shakes it, and gobbles the ants clinging to it. The mother watches, unhurried, while Saïsaï learns the technique through hands‑on experience.

Another scene involves a mother called Féré gathering three baobab fruits and placing them near her son Fotti. An older sibling steps in, smacks a fruit against a stone anvil, and then gently guides Fotti’s hand to try it himself. After a few attempts the youngster manages to crack open the fruit on his own. This is not tool use in the strict sense—here the stone serves as an anvil—but it still illustrates how younger chimps learn by being given a chance to practise under supervision.

“Seeing this on film was a pleasant surprise,” says R. Adriana Hernandez‑Aguilar, the study’s lead author. “It tells us that teaching, in the simplest sense, is part of chimp culture.” The researchers point out that the adult chimp often forgoes a bite of food while handing over the tool, a cost that satisfies a key criterion for animal teaching: the teacher incurs a short‑term loss for the pupil’s benefit.

These findings add nuance to a long‑standing debate about how chimpanzees acquire their impressive repertoire of technologies—ranging from leaf sponges that soak up water to spears used for hunting. While some argue that young chimps simply copy what they see, the observed hand‑overs suggest an active role for teaching, alongside observation and trial‑and‑error.

“Teaching events are rare and hard to capture,” notes Elliot Howard‑Spink of the Max Planck Institute for Animal Behaviour. “Finding several examples across different tool‑use contexts really strengthens the case that chimpanzees have a rudimentary teaching system.”

Overall, the study—published in Frontiers in Psychology—shows that cultural transmission in our closest relatives is not just a matter of passive imitation. It involves intentional sharing, patience, and a willingness to let the next generation make mistakes while still guiding them toward success.