2026-05-21 マックス・プランク研究所
Infant chimpanzee (left) peering at the hands of a juvenile (right) engaging in ectoparasite inspection with a leaf.© Nora Slania
＜関連情報＞
- https://www.mpg.de/26529583/study-reveals-overlooked-breadth-of-chimpanzee-culture
- https://www.cell.com/iscience/fulltext/S2589-0042(26)01297-6
チンパンジーの文化は、目に見えるものだけにとどまらない：野生個体における広範な観察に基づく社会的学習の証拠 Chimpanzee culture beyond the conspicuous: Evidence for broad-scale observational social learning in wild individuals
Nora E. Slania ∙ Mariana Gómez-Muñoz ∙ Ayrin-Sophie Piephoh ∙ … ∙ Catherine Hobaiter ∙ Klaus Zuberbühle ∙ Caroline Schuppli
iScience Published: April 28, 2026
DOI:https://doi.org/10.1016/j.isci.2026.115922
Highlights
- Wild chimpanzees’ peering patterns are indicative of observational social learning
- Peered-at behaviors suggest chimpanzee culture goes far beyond its known extent
- Putative cultural traits span all behavioral domains, from simple to complex skills
- Mothers are peered at most, but when available non-kin are selectively targeted
Summary
Wild chimpanzee cultures have traditionally been studied through group-level comparisons of a limited set of conspicuous skills. The cultural relevance of everyday behaviors, and consequently the full extent of chimpanzee cultural repertoires, has thereby remained largely unexplored. Here, we investigated individual-level cultural processes to assess the breadth of cultural repertoires and patterns of role model selection in a population of wild eastern chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes schweinfurthii). First, we validate that wild chimpanzees use peering, i.e., the close-range observation of a conspecific, for targeted social information seeking. We then show that chimpanzees peer at a wide range of everyday skills, such as feeding and grooming, and direct peering toward various conspecifics from an early age. Our findings suggest that wild chimpanzees use peering to learn a wide variety of skills, thereby highlighting unrecognized cultural potential in everyday behaviors. Furthermore, our findings suggest that peering may have multiple functions and underlying motivations.
