Tag Archive for 'Tool use'

The wooden tools found at the site of Gantangqing in China. Image credit: Liu et al., doi: 10.1126/science.adr8540.

300,000-Year-Old Wooden Tools Discovered in China

Jul 3, 2025 by News Staff

Archaeologists have unearthed an assemblage of 35 wooden tools — digging sticks and small, complete, hand-held pointed tools — at the Early...

Allokelping in southern resident killer whales (Orcinus orca ater). Image credit: Weiss et al., doi: 10.1016/j.cub.2025.04.021.

Killer Whales Fashion Tools from Kelp and Use Them for Grooming

Jun 30, 2025 by News Staff

In a paper published this month in the journal Current Biology, marine researchers report evidence of the widespread manufacture and use of grooming tools...

Tool-using genera within the family Labridae. Image credit: Tariel-Adam et al., doi: 10.1007/s00338-025-02633-w.

Tool Use Observed in Multiple Species of Wrasses

Apr 7, 2025 by Natali Anderson

A diverse array of animals has evolved the ability to use tools (e.g., primates, parrots, octopus, crabs, and wasps), but the factors leading to tool use...

The 1.5-million-year-old elephant humerus that has been knapped into a tool. Image credit: CSIC.

1.5-Million-Year-Old Bone Tool ‘Factory’ Discovered in Tanzania

Mar 5, 2025 by News Staff

Paleoanthropologists have documented a bone tool assemblage from a single horizon dated to 1.5 million years ago at Olduvai Gorge in Tanzania. These bone...

Several animal species use tools for foraging; however, very few manufacture and/or modify those tools. Humpback whales, which manufacture bubble-net tools while foraging, are among these rare species. Using animal-borne tag and unoccupied aerial system technologies, Szabo et al. examine bubble-nets manufactured by solitary humpback whales (Megaptera novaeangliae) in Southeast Alaska while feeding on krill. They demonstrate that the nets consist of internally tangential rings and suggest that whales actively control the number of rings in a net, net size and depth and the horizontal spacing between neighboring bubbles. They argue that whales regulate these net structural elements to increase per-lunge prey intake by, on average, sevenfold. Image credit: Szabo et al., doi: 10.1098/rsos.240328.

Humpback Whales Wield and Manufacture Their Own Tools

Aug 21, 2024 by News Staff

Humpback whales (Megaptera novaeangliae) create the so-called ‘bubble-net tools’ to hunt, but researchers from the University of Hawai’i and the...

Captive Goffin’s cockatoos are able to innovate the flexible use of a toolset. Image credit: Osuna-Mascaró et al., doi: 10.1016/j.cub.2023.01.023.

Goffin’s Cockatoos Can Use and Transport Toolsets, Study Shows

Feb 14, 2023 by News Staff

In new research from the University of Veterinary Medicine Vienna, the majority of Goffin’s cockatoos (Cacatua goffiniana) spontaneously innovated toolset...

The dinosauroid by Dale Russell and Ron Séguin. Image credit: Canadian Museum of Nature / Darren Naish & Will Tattersdill, doi: 10.1139/cjes-2020-0172.

What If Non-Avian Dinosaurs Hadn’t Gone Extinct?

Nov 28, 2022 by The Conversation

About 66 million years ago, a 10-km-wide asteroid crashed into Earth near the site of the small town of Chicxulub in what is now Mexico. The impact unleashed...

Loui, the juvenile male orangutan, uses the core as an active element to vertically strike on the concrete floor of the testing room. Image credit: Motes-Rodrigo et al., doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0263343.

Scientists Investigate Stone Tool Making and Using Abilities in Orangutans

Feb 17, 2022 by News Staff

Early stone tools represent one of the most important technological milestones in human evolution. The production and use of sharp stone tools significantly...

New Caledonian crows (Corvus moneduloides) are particularly careful when handling their most valuable tools. Image credit: James St Clair.

New Caledonian Crows Prefer Hooked Stick Tools, Safely Store Them Underfoot or in Holes

Dec 22, 2021 by News Staff

According to a new study, New Caledonian crows (Corvus moneduloides) strongly prefer hooked stick tools made from stems of the ground tamarind (Desmanthus...

Photographs of Bruce handling objects larger than his preening pebbles, namely: (a) a slice of carrot, (b) a stone, (c) a piece of bark, (d) a black token used in previous cognitive experiments he was a part of; a close-up image (e) demonstrates how he uses his tongue and lower mandible to hold these objects. Image credit: Bastos et al., doi: 10.1038/s41598-021-97086-w.

Kea Parrots are Capable of Innovating Self-Care Tooling, New Study Shows

Sep 13, 2021 by News Staff

A new study published in the journal Scientific Reports provides empirical evidence for deliberate self-care tooling in a species of bird. Photographs...

Padana, a female orangutan at Leipzig Zoo, continued to use wooden hammers to crack nuts for some time after the end of the study. Image credit: Claudio Tennie.

Orangutans Observed Using Hammer Tools to Crack Nuts

Sep 1, 2021 by Natali Anderson

New research from the University of Tübingen demonstrates that nut-cracking can emerge in Sumatran (Pongo abelii) and Bornean (Pongo pygmaeus) orangutans...

Tusks of straight-tusked elephants (Palaeoloxodon antiquus) and small objects at the site of Castel di Guido, Italy. Image credit: Villa et al., doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0256090.

400,000-Year-Old Elephant Bone Tools Unearthed in Italy

Aug 31, 2021 by Enrico de Lazaro

Around 400,000 years ago, pre-modern hominids — likely Neanderthals — at a Middle Pleistocene site in Italy appropriated elephant carcasses...

Identifying the raw material used by wild New Caledonian crows for manufacturing hooked stick tools: (A) New Caledonian crow holding a hooked stick tool manufactured from Desmanthus virgatus at site-2; (B) satellite photograph showing study sites on the west coast of Grande Terre, New Caledonia; (C) timeline of animal-centered approaches employed while attempting to identify the tool material used at site-3, with short explanations for their limited success; (D) timeline of the artifact-centered, DNA barcoding approach which ultimately led to successful material identification; (i) hooked stick tool recovered at site-3; (ii) Mimusops elengi trees, with close-up of a forked terminal branch, which would be suitable for tool manufacture; (iii) simplified maximum-likelihood ITS phylogenetic tree detailing clustering of tool samples and a subset of reference data; (iv) ‘refit’ of a hooked stick tool made from Mimusops elengi material by a temporarily captive crow from site-1: the tool is displayed along with stem and plant debris which were discarded by the crow during the manufacture process. Scale in mm. Image credit: Steele et al., doi: 10.1073/pnas.2020699118.

Scientists Use DNA Barcoding to Identify Tool Materials of New Caledonian Crows

Jul 27, 2021 by News Staff

Using a taxonomic method called DNA barcoding, researchers have identified, from just a few recovered tool specimens, the plant species New Caledonian...

An eastern honeybee (Apis cerana). Image credit: Rushen B.

Eastern Honeybees Use Animal Feces to Protect Their Colonies from Giant Hornets

Dec 11, 2020 by News Staff

In a paper published this week in the journal PLoS ONE, an international team of researchers described an extraordinary collective defense used by eastern...

Reconstruction of a Neanderthal. Image credit: Neanderthal Museum.

Neanderthal Thumbs were Better Adapted to Holding Tools with Handles: Study

Nov 26, 2020 by News Staff

Neanderthals may have found precision grips (where objects are held between the tip of the finger and thumb) more challenging than power squeeze grips...

When faced with the risk of drowning, black imported fire ants (Solenopsis richteri) used sand to siphon liquid food out of containers. Image credit: Zhou et al.

Black Imported Fire Ants Adapt Tool Use to Avoid Drowning

Oct 8, 2020 by News Staff

Black imported fire ants (Solenopsis richteri) have the remarkable ability to adapt its tool use: when provided with small containers of sugar water, they...

This is a dolphin ‘shelling.’ Image credit: Sonja Wild / Dolphin Innovation Project.

Study: Bottlenose Dolphins Learn Foraging Skills from Their Peers

Jun 29, 2020 by News Staff

Indian Ocean bottlenose dolphins (Tursiops aduncus) are not only capable of learning new ways to catch prey, but they are also motivated to learn from...

A wild Siberian jay parent (left) and its retained offspring (right) foraging together. Image credit: Michael Griesser.

Study: Extended Parental Care Helps Juvenile Siberian Jays and New Caledonian Crows Grow Smarter

Jun 3, 2020 by News Staff

New research on two corvid species, Siberian jays (Perisoreus infaustus) and New Caledonian crows (Corvus moneduloides), shows that extended family life...

Neanderthals consumed plants, too. Image credit: University of Utah via kued.org.

Neanderthals Made Leather-Working Tools from Bison and Aurochs Ribs

May 11, 2020 by News Staff

Neanderthals selected rib bones from specific animals to make the lissoirs (French for ‘smoothers’), which are bone tools that have been intentionally...

An Atlantic puffin (Fratercula arctica) scratching with a stick on Grimsey Island, Iceland. Image credit: Fayet et al, doi: 10.1073/pnas.1918060117.

Seabirds Spotted Using Tools for the First Time

Jan 15, 2020 by Natali Anderson

An international team of researchers from the University of Oxford and the South Iceland Nature Research Centre has observed two Atlantic puffins (Fratercula...