Stone-assisted drumming in Western chimpanzees and its implications for communication and cultural transmission

Chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes) communicate in complex ways, including sounds produced by hand and foot drumming on trees, often combined with loud vocalisations. Recently, a puzzling stone throwing behaviour at trees was observed, resulting in stone piles at tree buttresses. It is a rare case of tool use for communication in animals and suggested to function like buttress drumming in long-distance communication and male displays. We tested this hypothesis by determining the behavioural dynamics in comparison to hand and foot tree buttress drumming in Western chimpanzees in Boé, Guinea Bissau. Using camera traps, we show that in 78% of cases, stones were picked up at trees, not leading to further stone accumulation beyond the already existing stone piles. Stone assisted and hand and foot drumming occurred separately or were combined in similar behavioural contexts in apparent long-distance communication and highly aroused behavioural contexts. Yet, immediately before stone drumming, chimpanzees swayed less and pant hooted more while afterwards pant hooting less compared to the other contexts, suggesting a separate motivation and/or function for stone assisted drumming. It suggests this unique stone-based activity having its own signal value, separate from hand/foot buttress drumming and, considering the spatial variation, might be culturally transmitted.