Chimps Exhibit Human-Like Sharing Behavior

Iowa State University anthropology professor Jill Pruetz reports that her chimpanzees from a research site in Senegal are sharing food and hunting tools with other chimps. Researchers have witnessed 41 cases of these chimps willing to share. This is the first study to document sharing behavior outside the family with goods other than meat. The sharing of food has been considered by most scholars a defining characteristic of human behavior.