Study Shows Chimps Can Learn to Cook
Study Shows Chimps Can Learn to Cook
Hannah Keyser
At least, they think they're cooking. Earlier studies have already shown that when taught by humans, bonobos, a close relative of chimps, can learn to cook their food. But now a new study indicates that the primates can develop the concept of cooking and the patience for delayed gratification all on their own.
The research was conducted by Alexandra Rosati, an evolutionary biologist at Yale, and Felix Warneken, a psychologist at Harvard University, at a chimpanzee sanctuary in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. The team didn't want to leave chimps to their own devices around real fire for fear that they would injure themselves, so instead they gave the animals a fake "oven" and some raw sweet potato.
"You can think of it as a chimpanzee microwave where, basically, if the chimpanzees placed raw food in the device and then we shook the device, [the food] came out cooked," Rosati told NPR's The Salt.
What actually happened was that the researchers had already put pre-cooked food in a hidden compartment that opened when the device was shaken. But to the chimps, the effect was as if their raw food had been cooked. And over time, the chimps—who apparently prefer cooked sweet potatoes—learned to save their raw food for the chance to "cook" it.
More:
http://mentalfloss.com/article/64762/study-shows-chimps-can-learn-cook
= new reply since forum marked as read
LITERALLY 
