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This is very cool.

During a study, the animals were shown footage of a trained chimp combining two components to construct a tool that enabled it to reach a food reward.

When given the same two components, the chimps made their own tools and used them to drag over a tasty treat.

What I find even more interesting is that chimps who only saw part of the demo improvised solutions —- far more effectively than those who saw the entire demo:

Rather than faithfully copy the demonstration, these animals switched between using the unmodified tube or rod, and using the combined tool, depending on how far away the grape was.

“Those that had been shown the full demonstration, and had socially learned to make the longer tool, continued to make it even when the grape was so close that it was more awkward to use,” said Dr Price.

Heather Rivers, creator of the awesome Tumblr tag cloud, is a woman of many talents: here she’s put together an interesting and entertaining guide to hollowing out books for gift-giving or surreptitious storage.