Apes Make and Use Tools

[Minimalist]

http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn22...L|dn22197/

There is a brief advertisement in the video before it gets to the point.

Kanzi the bonobo continues to impress. Not content with learning sign language or making up "words" for things like banana or juice, he now seems capable of making stone tools on a par with the efforts of early humans.

Eviatar Nevo of the University of Haifa in Israel and his colleagues sealed food inside a log to mimic marrow locked inside long bones, and watched Kanzi, a 30-year-old male bonobo chimp, try to extract it. While a companion bonobo attempted the problem a handful of times, and succeeded only by smashing the log on the ground, Kanzi took a longer and arguably more sophisticated approach.

[Kayenneh]

Not only apes use tools, monkeys do too

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3udzhDvsG-s

[A Theist]

....as do crows

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NhmZBMuZ6vE

[popeyespappy]

Yep, Kanzi is a flint knapper.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Gys8fPJM_U

[festive1]

There was an article on the distinction between humans and animals in last month's Harper's.
For your reading enjoyment:
http://www.harpers.org/archive/2012/08/0084016
(Edited to add: I should check my links out before posting them... this does indeed lead to the article, but when you try to open it it wants you to subscribe, so either subscribe or head to the local library!)

Basically it comes down to language. Which is a tricky subject when it comes to animals, as the article discusses. Interesting read, though.

[Anomalocaris]

Yeah, the more we investigate the vocalizations of rhesus monkeys, the more attributes of a language it seem to possess. That's only because in the wild, the habits of rhesus monkeys makes their vocalizations relative ease to investigate. We don't even know what chimp vocalizations really contain, because their habits makes it difficult for us to evesdrop.

But certainly groups of chimps in the wild exhibit behavior suggestive of group discussion in formulating group plans.

[Napoléon]

Nothing new here, we've been doing it for years

[Tea Earl Grey Hot]

I once saw a video of an ape in some lab playing a piano. I thought it was interesting that it was playing what sounded like notes only of the pentatonic scale. Pentatonic scale is commonly found in societies with a more primitive understanding of music.

[Phish]

So apes will evolve in their own way,but how much time will this need before they will get so crazy as homo sapiens.

[Shell B]

Loads of animals use tools. Only a few make them. Fascinating, isn't it? Nice reminder that we're not so special after all, huh, A theist?