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Defensive stoning by baboons

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Abstract

REPORTS of the use of tools in offence or defence by wild animals is limited to accounts of chimpanzees throwing branches at conspecifics, potential predators and at human observers1. Anecdotal accounts of stone throwing by baboons2 have been dismissed on the basis of the unreliability of correspondents and the improbability of oriented throwing by a quadruped anatomically incapable of overhand throwing3. In spite of several years of field study elsewhere in Africa, often in rocky terrain, there are no reports by professional field observers of deliberate stone throwing by baboons4–7.

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References

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Division of Environmental Studies, University of California, Davis, California, 95616

    WILLIAM J. HAMILTON III, RUTH E. BUSKIRK & WILLIAM H. BUSKIRK

Authors
  1. WILLIAM J. HAMILTON III
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  2. RUTH E. BUSKIRK
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  3. WILLIAM H. BUSKIRK
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HAMILTON, W., BUSKIRK, R. & BUSKIRK, W. Defensive stoning by baboons. Nature 256, 488–489 (1975). https://doi.org/10.1038/256488a0

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