Animal Tool Behavior: The Use and Manufacture of Tools by Animals
Robert W. Shumaker, Benjamin B. Beck
Language: English
Pages: 304
ISBN: 0801898536
Format: PDF / Kindle (mobi) / ePub
When published in 1980, Benjamin B. Beck’s Animal Tool Behavior was the first volume to catalog and analyze the complete literature on tool use and manufacture in non-human animals. Beck showed that animals―from insects to primates―employed different types of tools to solve numerous problems. His work inspired and energized legions of researchers to study the use of tools by a wide variety of species.
In this revised and updated edition of the landmark publication, Robert W. Shumaker and Kristina R. Walkup join Beck to reveal the current state of knowledge regarding animal tool behavior. Through a comprehensive synthesis of the studies produced through 2010, the authors provide an updated and exact definition of tool use, identify new modes of use that have emerged in the literature, examine all forms of tool manufacture, and address common myths about non-human tool use. Specific examples involving invertebrates, birds, fish, and mammals describe the differing levels of sophistication of tool use exhibited by animals.
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group), an adult male with a flulike illness was observed on four occasions using nasal probes of dry twigs, grass stems, or leaf midribs (Nishida and Nakamura 1993). The tool (10 to 18 centimeters long) was Inserted into a nostril, often eliciting a sneeze. The authors felt this behavior was performed specifically to encourage the sneeze, in an attempt to clear mucus from his nasal passage. They noted the significance of this, stating, “a chimpanzee can manipulate even its own involuntary body
creatures, whereas anthropologists—more committed to the premise of absolute human uniqueness— are inclined to discover reasons why such evidence can be discounted” (Ingold 1997, 109). We will not argue for absolute human uniqueness in terms of tool behavior, nor for minimizing the significance of animal tool behavior. Animal tool behavior should not be discounted as tool behavior, nor should it be considered less significant by lack of evidence for “intelligent use” in some cases (see myth # 2).
xii, 77, 89, 90, 93, 94, 98, 209 macaques, xii, 1, 10, 12, 77, 89-101, 104-105, 106-107, 209-210, 211, 225 macaw, 48, 51-52, 55 Macheiramphus, 37 magpie, 52 Mahale, 144, 146, 147, 148, 149, 150, 151, 152, 162, 163, 164, 165, 168, 169, 175, 176, 177, 190, 193, 196 Majidae, 28 mandrill, 90, 105 Mandrillus, 90 mangabeys, 90 map, 4, 212, 213 marmoset, 81 marten, 208 Martes, 208 Mastophora, 29, 205 Matsuzawa, Tetsuro, 18, 179 medicinal plant, 2, 10, 87,
excavate shelters by blowing out debris and sand (Mather 1995). Block Thorpe (1963) cited reports by Pliny and Power of tool use by octopuses (Octopus spp.). The cephalopods are said to have used stones to prop open the shells of large bivalves while they consumed the flesh. Thorpe also relayed a personal communication from Berry that O. digueti uses a clamshell as an artificial operculum to close gastropod shells inhabited by the octopus. Lane (1957) reported an observation of an octopus
Wave, Shake Elephants often manufacture their fly switches. After they Detached or picked up a branch, elephants were observed to further modify it (Hart and Hart 1994; Hart et al. 2001). They Subtracted side branches or shortened the branch before use. Elephants as young as 18 months of age were observed to engage in this sort of Subtraction, but this appeared to be beyond the abilities of a youngster that was 9 months old. After Detaching the leafy bough (first-order manufacture), the
