Young female chimps are faster and
better learners than young male chimps, suggest a new study, echoing learning
differences seen in human girls and boys. While young male
chimps pass their time playing, young female chimps carefully study their
mothers. As a result, they learn how to fish fortasty termite snacks over two
years before the boys. Elizabeth Lonsdorf, now at Lincoln Park
Zoo in Chicago, US, and colleagues at the University of Minnesota, Saint Paul,
spent four years watching how young chimpanzees in the Gombe National Park in
Tanzania learned "cultural behavior". The sex differences in
learning behavior were "consistent and strikingly apparent", says the team. The
researchers point out that similar differences are seen in human children with
regard to skills such as writing. "A sex-based learning differences may
therefore date back at least to the last common ancestor of chimpanzees and
humans," they write in the journal Nature. Chimps make
flexible tools from vegetation and then insert them into termite mounds extract
them and then munch the termites clinging onto the tool. The researchers used
video cameras to record this feeding behavior and found that each chimp mother
had her own technique. Such as how she used tools of different
lengths. Analysis of the six infants whose ages were known
showed that girl chimps were an average of 31 months old when they succeeded in
fishing out their termites, where the boy chimps were aged 58 months on average.
Females were also more skillful at getting out more termites with every dip and
used techniques similar to their mothers while males did not.
Instead of studying their mothers, the boy chimps spent a significantly greater
amount of time frolicking around the termite mound. Behaviors such as playing or
swinging might help the male infants later in life when typically male
activities like hunting or fighting for dominance become important, suggest the
researchers. Lonsdorf adds that there are just two main sources
of animal protein for chimps—the termites or colobus monkeys. "Mature males
often hunt monkeys up trees. But females are almost always either pregnant or
burdened with a clinging infants. This makes hunting difficult," she says.
"Adult females spend more time fishing for termites than males." So becoming
proficient at termite fishing could mean adult females eat better, "They can
watch their offspring at the same time. The young of both sexes seem to pursue
activities related to their adult sex roles at a very young age."
单选题
Why do young female chimps learn faster than young male chimps at
fishing for termites?
A.Because young female chimps don't play with their brothers.
B.Because young female chimps begin to study their mothers earlier.
C.Because young male chimps never learn to fish for termites.
D.Because young male chimps are not interested in termites.