#tool use

[blondebrainpowered]

David Attenborough observing an orangutan trying to emulate hammering a nail. - The Life of Mammals, 2003.

[harkthorn]

Have a timeline cleanse of Ohtori using one of his tail feathers, that he's stripped at the end specifically, to scratch himself with

[potchatok-art]

This is a serious anthropologic diagram

it’s a redraw of cow tools

[cluckamok]

Use tools that make your life easier if you have access to them.

Doing things on hard mode on purpose is not noble or badass or something to punish yourself with. It means you have internalized some unfortunate shit: maybe ableism, maybe sexism, maybe capitalism, maybe the way other people have treated you. Life is hard enough as-is and you should be nicer to yourself.

I have always struggled with thinking I don't "deserve" things that make life easier for me, and whenever I start slipping back to that mentality, I just think of how any other tool using species would think my behavior was ludicrous.

Imagining a crow being really disappointed in me has been surprisingly effective. I don't want corvids to think I'm uncool.

[dat-physics-gal]

A comment section on YouTube once again reminded me why us humans are so successful as organisms.

Evolution rewards being adapted to your ecological environment, and normally that happens through biological inheritance, mutation and selection. But instead of having advantageous biological traits, homo sapiens as a species is maximized for learning and incorporating taught behaviors. We don't have good protection like a shell or even thick fur, we don't have natural weapons like claws, and while we do have teeth, they kinda suck for defensive purposes. We're also not that fast in terms of top speed, so running away from predators isn't really an option either.

What we do have, though, is the fact that thanks to our ability to teach and learn so well, we essentially outsourced our evolution from biology to culture instead. And as we are all aware, culture evolves way faster than DNA ever could. So evolution rewards adaptation, and we just went and evolved not to adapt to a specific environment, but to be able to adapt really fast in general. Yeah we require tool use and community, if you set out a lone human infant in the wild they'll just straight up die. If you leave an adult without any tools or clothing, they will either attempt and succeed to make them, or die as well. But if we have both, we are the absolute champions of adapting to environments, by adapting our culture and tools to it, instead of needing to adapt our bodies.

[trendynewsnow]

The Cultural Foraging Techniques of Chimpanzees

The Remarkable Foraging Techniques of Chimpanzees It’s fascinating to observe the lengths to which chimpanzees will go to secure a tasty snack. In the lush rainforests of the Congo, these intelligent apes have been observed engaging in complex foraging behaviors. They skillfully poke holes into the ground using a sturdy stick and then select a long, flexible stem. With remarkable dexterity, they…

The Cultural Foraging Techniques of Chimpanzees

[is-the-primate-vid-cute]

[video description: video is a tiktok by user @perthzoo. The video shows a brown tufted capuchin in an outdoor enclosure with three walnuts in the shell. The monkey grabs a nearby rock that has a hole drilled in it and a cable attached to it, presumably attaching the rock to the wall or floor of the enclosure but we cannot see this. She uses the cabled rock to smash the walnuts, but she is not successful and the walnuts roll away from her. She gathers them back together and smashes again, this time one of the walnuts shoots off the rock. A male brown tufted capuchin approaches, he gathers a walnut and this time using the flat side of the rock, he smashed the walnut successfully and eats the pieces. While he does this, the female tries bashing her walnuts by hand against a large rock on the ground. While the video plays, light percussive music plays. End video description.]