Did You Know?
Scientist have know for a long time that chimpanzees know how to use rudimentary tools and that they can teach their young, and each other, how to use these tools; hmm, and all this time I thought that they were just monkeying around.
Well, now they have discovered that there is another lesser intelligent creature that has figured out how to use tools. (Alright ladies, no snide remarks; just because your husband has a garage full of tools and only knows how to use half of them doesn’t count!)
In a study of bottle nose dolphins in Shark Bay, Western Australia, it was discovered that the marine critters will break off conical sponges from the seafloor and wear them on their snouts. Pretty cool huh?
Oh! Why, you ask, would this be a tool? They wear the sponge as a, sort of, protective glove to wear while they are foraging for food on the seabed. The “Glove” helps protect their snout from scrapes and the stings of spiny stonefish while they search for a tasty snack.
Not only that but, they discovered, that this is not an instinctive, or a genetic, impulse; the skill is taught, or handed down, to the young by their mothers.
The bottle nose dolphin isn’t the only sea creature that uses the sponge as a, kind of, tool… if you will. Some sponges contain toxic substances and there are some marine animals that will place these sponges on their bodies in an effort to fend off other critters that would, otherwise, make a snack out of them.
Okay, alright; if you read the comics you already know this. Gimme a break… I try.
