Vicious drone attack by sneaky chimp no accident say researchers

By Chris Burns/Sept. 4, 2015 11:59 am EST

A chimp by the name of Tushi took down a drone in a report released this week by the journal Primates. This event took place this April but footage was just released today, complete with drone movement, pre-emptive chimpanzee strike action, and a 1.8-meter long stick. This attack was described as deliberate and planned. This shows more evidence that primates are able to think ahead and be creative in their toolmaking, so said scientists to the surprise of absolutely no-one.

The following video was provided by the folks at Burgers' Zoo in Arnhem, Netherlands. Go take a visit if you happen to be in the area, it's located at Antoon van Hooffplein 1, 6816 SH Arnhem, Netherlands. Be forewarned – if you love drones, the following video may be hard to stomach. This chimp takes no prisoners. This video was kindly provided by the folks at the

The study taking place DURING the attack was performed by Jan A.R.A.M. van Hooff and Bas Lukkenaar. Their paper on the drone attack is just one piece of their study on tool use in the chimp colony.

In addition to the stick you see being used in the video above, Takeshita and van Hoof have identified 13 unique types of tool use in this colony. They suggest that not only is shape taken into consideration, but size and weight as well.

An experiment was conducted with this colony during this study in which a stuffed lion was placed on the other side of the moat which surrounds the chimp's living space. Once the chimps began noticing the lion (expecting that it was real), they began collecting heavy pieces of wood and stones to use as throwing weapons should the predator choose to attack.

This study cited the following segment in which chimps were shown an artificial leopard (with moving head!) in a documentary the documentary "Chimpanzees in the wild" by Kortlandt A (1993) – Wisconsin Reg. Prim. Res. Ctr. Library.

For more information see the full paper "Captive chimpanzee takes down a drone: tool use toward a flying object" by authors Jan A.R.A.M. van Hooff and Bas Lukkenaar. This paper was published by the scientific journal Primates under code doi:10.1007/s10329-015-0482-2.