Experienced individuals transfer tools to youngsters and coach them, with mothers serving as primary models and instructors in the teaching process.

In Senegal, chimpanzees transfer tools and fruit to learners, a behavior described as teaching that helps recipients acquire complex food-getting techniques.

Wild adults repeatedly transfer tools and provide coaching, offering the first clear evidence that teaching supports the learning of technological skills.

Researchers note that teaching is an observable yet rare form of social learning in animals, highlighting the costs to the teacher as a key teaching criterion.

Two specific footage cases provide rare, direct evidence of deliberate teaching that leads to successful skill acquisition by learners.

The study, led by a team at the University of Barcelona, analyzes 15 hours of camera-trap footage from Dindefelo, Senegal, collected 2017–2025, to examine chimpanzee tool use and teaching.

The footage covers tools used for algae fishing, army ant dipping, and baobab pounding, across sites where chimpanzees actively employ technology.

Transfers were often voluntary and initiated by recipients, with occasional theft and retaliation indicating competition alongside teaching.

Findings support the view that tool transfers constitute a simple form of teaching, characterized by a cost to the teacher and a measurable benefit to the learner.

Observing, supervised practice, and tool transfer together facilitate learning to use technology for accessing difficult foods, suggesting a combined learning pathway.

Tool and food transfers are proposed as a mechanism for transmitting complex technological skills not easily learned through observation alone.

Notable example: a mother named Soukki guides her daughter Saïsaï to retrieve and eat ants from a dipping stick, illustrating a teaching dynamic in action.