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. 2017 Jul 24;7(1):6278.
doi: 10.1038/s41598-017-06541-0.

Digging up food: excavation stone tool use by wild capuchin monkeys

Tiago Falótico  1 , José O Siqueira  2 , Eduardo B Ottoni  2
Affiliations

Digging up food: excavation stone tool use by wild capuchin monkeys

Tiago Falótico et al. Sci Rep. .

Abstract

Capuchin monkeys at Serra da Capivara National Park (SCNP) usually forage on the ground for roots and fossorial arthropods, digging primarily with their hands but also using stone tools to loosen the soil and aid the digging process. Here we describe the stone tools used for digging by two groups of capuchins on SCNP. Both groups used tools while digging three main food resources: Thiloa glaucocarpa tubers, Ocotea sp roots, and trapdoor spiders. One explanation for the occurrence of tool use in primates is the "necessity hypothesis", which states that the main function of tool use is to obtain fallback food. We tested for this, but only found a positive correlation between plant food availability and the frequency of stone tools' use. Thus, our data do not support the fallback food hypothesis for the use of tools to access burrowed resources.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare that they have no competing interests.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Male capuchin monkey digging with a DST.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Food items searched by the monkeys with the aid of DSTs. Unidentified resources correspond to episodes in which we were unable to determine the target resource even after site inspection.
Figure 3
Figure 3
Thiloa glaucocarpa underground storage organs (USOs). Scale: 10 cm.
Figure 4
Figure 4
Louro tree root (Ocotea sp), with peeled skin. Scale: 10 cm.
Figure 5
Figure 5
Capuchin monkey digging site. (a) Excavated tunnel and the DST used. (b) Detail of the web tunnel. (c) Trapdoor spider (Actinopus sp).
Figure 6
Figure 6
Efficiency in the acquisition of resources using DSTs. Only episodes with resource identification are accounted. (n juveniles = 628; n adults/subadults = 613). * GLMM, p < 0.05.
Figure 7
Figure 7
Arthropods availability (orange line), plant matter availability (green line), and rain precipitation (bars) during the research period.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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