An Overlooked Early Report of Chimpanzees Using Tools to Forage for Oysters

Abstract

We report a record made in 1682, in Sierra Leone, West Africa, of local people showing a European visitor evidence of ‘apes’ using sticks to obtain oysters as food. Circumstantial evidence suggests that the observation can only refer to the western chimpanzee Pan troglodytes verus and the West African mangrove oyster Crassostrea tulipa. This appears to be the only known record of wild chimpanzees eating marine bivalves, and of using tools to obtain any aquatic animal prey.