Chimpanzees share objects just to get attention, researchers say

Chimpanzees “show off” by sharing objects they’ve just found – and are therefore even more human-like than previously thought, a new study shows.

British researchers have captured images of a wild adult chimpanzee in Uganda, Fiona, encouraging her mother to look at a leaf she found.

Like a young human child who has picked up a random object from the ground, Fiona shoves the blade under her mother’s nose for a few seconds before withdrawing it.

The priceless footage shows chimpanzees sharing objects just to get attention – a social behavior described as ‘sharing for the sake of sharing’, which is thought to be unique to humans.

Humans and chimpanzees are both great apes (Hominidae) and chimpanzees are our closest animal cousins, but this behavior has never been recorded before.

The interaction has been described in a new study published today in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

“It has been suggested that ‘sharing for the sake of sharing’ is a uniquely human trait, but our observation of these wild chimpanzees challenges this,” said study author Dr Claudia Wilke of the University of York’s Department of Psychology.

“We observed an adult chimpanzee showing her mother a leaf that she had handled, not because she wanted her to do anything with the leaf, but most likely because she simply wanted her to look at the leaf as well.”

The interaction took place in Kibale National Park, near Uganda’s border with the Democratic Republic of Congo.

The adult female Fiona sat next to her mother Sutherland, whom she had been tinkering with.

Fiona then plucked a leaf from a small plant and began to groom the leaf – a previously documented behavior in chimpanzees that includes manipulating the leaf with her fingers and mouth and looking closely at the leaf.

“Sutherland’s attention was elsewhere while Fiona was doing this, and after cutting the blade for several seconds, Fiona held it out at Sutherland,” the researchers say.

“She moved her arm when the first hold elicited no response.

“When Sutherland took care of the blade by fully orienting her eyes and head towards it, Fiona ran it back and continued with the blade.”

In all, the team examined 84 similar leaf-care events to “explore Fiona’s likely motivation for her gesture”.

This allows them to rule out alternative explanations for the behavior, including sharing food and initiating grooming or play.

If, for example, sharing food was Fiona’s motive, she would have been expected to relinquish possession of the leaf—but in this case she did not.

Furthermore, the type of leaf that Fiona showed Sutherland is not part of the chimpanzee diet in this particular chimpanzee community.

In their paper, the researchers draw a comparison with young human infants who like to “share attention with others about external entities” – sharing for the sake of sharing.

Human infants as young as 10 to 13 months old begin to make gestures such as showing, giving, or pointing to an elder.

This helps establish social interaction and direct a caregiver’s attention to an object, action, or entity.

Future research will aim to further document this behavior in chimpanzee communities, the experts conclude.

There are four living classifications of great apes or “Hominidae” – Orangutan, Gorilla, Pan (consisting of chimpanzees and bonobos) and Homo, of which only modern humans remain.

Chimpanzees, along with bonobos, both share 98.7 percent of their DNA with humans—making the two species our closest living relatives.

Like us, chimpanzees are highly social animals, care for their offspring for years, and can live to be over 50 years old.

Female chimpanzees spend most of their time with their young or with other females, although they live in societies dominated by adult males.