Wildlife researchers studying wild cats in Gabon’s Batéké Plateau National Park were sifting through hours of trail-cam footage when they found an unexpected treat—a chimpanzee performing a behavior rarely seen on camera. Miami Herald reports that in January, the research team had already reviewed over 100 trail-cam videos from around the park when they stumbled across footage of a female chimp using a stick as a tool.
“All of a sudden the entire team let out a yell of excitement as this was the first time we had seen footage as incredible as this in the park,” said Alex Botha, Panthera wildlife restoration coordinator in the Batéké Plateau National Park, in an email to McClatchy News, parent company of the Miami Herald.
In the rare footage, a chimp walks up to the trail cam and begins poking it with a stick, as if it’s trying to figure out what the camera is. Then, the animal explores the end of the stick that was touching the camera by smelling it.
Tool use among non-human animals is not common, and scientists believe it indicates a higher level of intelligence. Chimpanzees are among those species known to use tools, but video evidence of this behavior in the wild isn’t common. Chimps are endangered, with the species’ major threats being poaching and habitat loss and degradation.
Watch a chimp use a stick as a tool in Gabon here: