It’s long been known that chimpanzees are our closest living relatives as we share a slew of uncanny similarities.
Like us, chimps can learn words, play with toys, identify themselves in the mirror, and apparently even enjoy some privacy once in a while. New research now suggests that these intelligent apes also share our appetite for a delicious cooked meal.
A study, published Tuesday in Proceedings of the Royal Academy B, shows that chimps have the brainpower to learn to cook.
Though chimps haven’t quite mastered making fire, they were able to cook raw food when presented with an oven-like device at a chimp sanctuary in the Republic of the Congo.
“Chimpanzees preferred cooked foods over raw foods and were even willing to pay greater temporal costs in order to acquire cooked foods,” the study says. “Chimpanzees further exhibited self-control by giving up food in their own possession in order to transform it by placing it in a novel cooking device.”
Interestingly, the chimps also saved their raw food in hopes of cooking it at a future time.
“To our knowledge, this is the first evidence that apes can plan for the future by saving food for future transformation,” the study also says.
See the chimps in action below and please SHARE if you are shocked by these findings!
