A chimp that deliberately fashions discs of concrete to later hurl at zoo visitors is being hailed as definitive proof that the apes plan for future events. Although similar claims have previously been made about chimps using tools to collect food, what sets Santino – a 30-year-old chimp from Furuvik zoo in Sweden – apart, is that his behaviour, and therefore his apparent state of mind, when collecting the ammunition seems markedly different from when he launches his attacks. "The chimp has without exception been calm during gathering or manufacture of the ammunition, in contrast to the typically aroused state [when he throws the rocks]," says Mathias Osvath of the University of Lund, also in Sweden.
So, we are not the only beings that create and stockpile weapons for battle. As Jane Goodall states in Ervin Laszlo's Science and the Reenchantment of the Cosmos, "Sadly, also like us, they [chimps] have a dark side: they are aggressively territorial, and may perform acts of extreme brutality and even wage a kind of primative war." Perhaps the chimpanzees will help us "tone down" the primate races so that another species may rise in our place.via New Scientist
