Observations of early vocal behaviours in non-human primates (hereafter primates) are important for direct comparisons between human and primate vocal development. However, direct observations of births and perinatal behaviour in wild primates are rare, and the initial stages of behavioural ontogeny usually remain undocumented. Here, we report direct observations of the birth of a wild chimpanzee ( Pan troglodytes schweinfurth...

Chimpanzees and orangutans are able to generate innovative behaviors to solve complicated physical problems. For example, when presented with an out-of-reach peanut at the bottom of a vertical tube (floating peanut task—FPT), some of them spontaneously spit water into the tube until the peanut floats to the top. Yet, it is unclear whether this innovative solution results from repeating those actions that bring the peanut incre...

We investigated whether chimpanzees use the temporal sequence of external events to determine causation. Seventeen chimpanzees ( Pan troglodytes ) witnessed a human experimenter press a button in two different conditions. When she pressed the “causal button” the delivery of juice and a sound immediately followed (cause-then-effect). In contrast, she pressed the “non-causal button” only after the delivery of juice and sound (ef...