Piloerectic Apes Have Plans

Santino carries a stone in his left hand. His forceful upright walking and piloerection (hair on end) indicate his agitation. Photo: Mathias Osvath, Current Biology

Current Biology Volume 19, Issue 5, 10 March 2009, Pages R190-R191
Summary of “Spontaneous planning for future stone throwing by a male chimpanzee” by Mathias Osvath

Planning for a future, rather than a current, mental state is a cognitive process generally viewed as uniquely human. Here, however, I shall report on a decade of observations of spontaneous planning by a male chimpanzee in a zoo. The planning actions, which took place in a calm state, included stone caching and the manufacture of discs from concrete, objects later used as missiles against zoo visitors during agitated chimpanzee dominance displays. Such planning implies advanced consciousness and cognition traditionally not associated with nonhuman animals. Spontaneous and unambiguous planning behaviours for future states by non-humans have not previously been reported, and anecdotal reports, describing single occasions, are exceptionally scarce. This dearth of observations is arguably the main reason for not ascribing cognitive foresight to nonhuman animals. To date, the surprisingly few controlled demonstrations of planning for future states by animals are experimentally induced behaviours in great apes and corvids. The observational findings in this report suggest that these laboratory results are not experimental artefacts, at least in the case of great apes.

Zoo workers assembled these stones to illustrate one of Santino’s typical arsenals. Photo: Mathias Osvath, Current Biology

Loren Coleman About Loren Coleman
Loren Coleman is one of the world’s leading cryptozoologists, some say “the” leading living cryptozoologist. Certainly, he is acknowledged as the current living American researcher and writer who has most popularized cryptozoology in the late 20th and early 21st centuries. Starting his fieldwork and investigations in 1960, after traveling and trekking extensively in pursuit of cryptozoological mysteries, Coleman began writing to share his experiences in 1969. An honorary member of Ivan T. Sanderson’s Society for the Investigation of the Unexplained in the 1970s, Coleman has been bestowed with similar honorary memberships of the North Idaho College Cryptozoology Club in 1983, and in subsequent years, that of the British Columbia Scientific Cryptozoology Club, CryptoSafari International, and other international organizations. He was also a Life Member and Benefactor of the International Society of Cryptozoology (now-defunct). Loren Coleman’s daily blog, as a member of the Cryptomundo Team, served as an ongoing avenue of communication for the ever-growing body of cryptozoo news from 2005 through 2013. He returned as an infrequent contributor beginning Halloween week of 2015. Coleman is the founder in 2003, and current director of the International Cryptozoology Museum in Portland, Maine.

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