Female chimps seen ­carrying sticks as if they were babies – scientists

Young female chimps have been observed playing with “dolls” in the form of sticks which they treat as babies.

The wild animals were seen carrying sticks around and lavishing attention on them, as if they were mothers doting on their infants.

Sometimes they took the sticks to their day nests, where they rested or played with them affectionately.

Scientists do not know if the behaviour is specific to the community of chimps in Kanyawara in Uganda’s Kibale National Park, or whether this form of play is common. “This is the first evidence of an animal species in the wild in which object play differs between males and females,” said lead researcher Richard Wrangham, from Harvard University in the US.

The researchers spent 14 years observing the Kanyawara chimp population.

They found that the chimps used sticks as probes to investigate holes containing water or honey, as props and weapons in aggressive encounters, during solitary or social play, and in behaviour described as “stick-carrying”.

The scientists said females engaged in stick-carrying the most.

“We thought that if the sticks are being treated like dolls, females would carry sticks more than males do and should stop carrying sticks when they have their own babies,” said Dr Wrangham.

“We now know that both of these points are correct.”

The research is reported in the journal Current Biology.

If stick-carrying was unique to the Kanyawara chimps, it would be equivalent to a childhood tradition such as nursery rhymes, said Dr Wrangham.

He added: “This would suggest that chimpanzee behavioural traditions are even more like those in humans than previously thought.”