Stephanie
Pappas, LiveScience Senior Writer
Chimpanzees
don't need to be rewarded for playing with brainteasers. Like humans with a
crossword puzzle, they're motivated by the challenge alone, new research finds.
 |
| Phil the chimpanzee plays with a puzzle at the Whipsnade Zoo. CREDIT: Zoological Society of London |
For
the study, published today (Feb. 23) in the American Journal of Primatology,
researchers followed six chimpanzees at the Zoological Society of London's
Whipsnade Zoo. Three of the chimps are half-brothers (Phil, Grant and Elvis),
and their family group includes another male and two females.
Zookeepers
gave the chimps a homemade
puzzle made of plumbing pipes. Inside the network of pipes were two
red dice. The chimps had to figure out where to poke sticks into holes in the
pipes to get the dice to change directions and fall into an exit chamber. The
game is based on the real-world task of using sticks to pull termites out of
their nests as a snack.
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