ST. PAUL, Minn., April 14 (UPI) -- A University of Minnesota study suggests young female chimps might be more adept than males in catching termites from mounds.
Although both sexes are taught by their mothers how to insert sticks into termite mounds and pull out the insects, the females seemed to learn the trick earlier, the study said.
While the young females perfected the art of termite catching, the young males spent more time playing and swinging around.
Those behaviors, the study said, may help them in typically male adult activities such as hunting and struggling for dominance, the study said.
It said the distinct sex differences in learning the skill are akin to differences between young girls and boys as they learn fine motor skills such as writing.
The study, conducted at Gombe National Park in Tanzania, has yielded the first systematic evidence of a difference between the sexes in the learning or imitation of a tool-use technique in wild chimpanzees.
