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Wild Bearded Capuchin Monkeys (Sapajus Libidinosus) Strategically Place Nuts In A Stable Position During Nut-Cracking, Dorothy M. Fragaszy, Qing Liu, Barth Wright, Angellica Allen, Callie Welch Brown, Elisabetta Visalberghi

Faculty Publications

Humans can use hand tools smoothly and effectively in varying circumstances; in other words, skillfully. A few other species of primates crack encased foods using hammer tools and anvils. Are they skilled? Positioning the food on the anvil so that it does not fall off when struck is a component of skilled cracking. We discovered that bearded capuchin monkeys deliberately place palm nuts in a relatively stable position on the anvil before striking them. In the first experiment, we marked the meridians of palm nuts where they stopped when rolled on a flat surface ("Stop meridian"). We videotaped monkeys as …