Indirect evidence of tool-assisted hunting in the Bantan chimpanzee (Pan troglodytes verus) community in southeastern Senegal savanna-woodlands

Abstract

Chimpanzees use tools extensively, but tool-assisted hunting has been reported at only two sites thus far. Systematic tool-assisted hunting has only been recorded at the Fongoli site in Senegal, where hundreds of cases have been recorded of chimpanzees using tools to hunt bushbaby (Galago senegalensis) prey. Here, we report a putative case of tool-assisted hunting at the Bantan study site in southeastern Senegal, based on indirect evidence of tools and tool-making traces in a context similar to that observed at neighboring Fongoli chimpanzee community. If our interpretations are correct, the simplest explanation is that Fongoli females have dispersed to this neighboring community, bringing with them the behavior of tool-assisted hunting. However, the persistence and frequency of tool-assisted hunting at other sites in Senegal is still unknown. Tool-assisted hunting in the Bantan chimpanzee community would present only the third such known site for such behavior among wild chimpanzees thus far.