Chimpanzees may have culture. What's culture? And don't only humans have it? Not according to Dr. Toshisada Nishida and other scientists who met in Chicago August 23-26 to discuss "Animal Social Complexity and Intelligence." For this group of ethologists (scientists who study animal behavior), the working definition of culture is the collective development of patterns of social behavior by imitation and teaching. But the behavior must be learned from members of the same species, not from the environment or from another species. 

Thomson Safaris, Inc. takes visitors to see chimpanzees in the Mahale Mountains of southern Tanzania and, sometimes, to meet Dr. Nishida and his team from Kyoto University. He said he has seen no change in the chimpanzees' behavior due to this contact with humans. Careful adherence to group size limits and quiet behavior by the humans are responsible, he said.

Dr. Nishida has been observing chimpanzees in the wilds of the Mahale Mountains since 1965. He sees chimps take turns banging on the side of a metal shed at his campsite. They imitate and learn from each other, and they even add individual twists. One big male, for example, runs to a metal wall, stands and pounds on it with both hands, then runs away. A second male runs the length of the wall beating it with one hand. A third runs, jumps and kicks, then hits the wall, then stands up and screams. 

Females don't do this. Males make noise to attract female attention, Dr. Nishida has observed, by doing everything from pulling dry leaves through the forest to throwing big rocks into water and pant-hooting at the top of their lungs. 

"Females don't throw rocks," he said, "so we know males don't learn that behavior from their mothers. They learn it from each other." 

Mothers presumably teach their daughters to look unimpressed.