Chimps Have Mental Skills to Cook

Chimpanzees not only prefer cooked foods versus those that are raw, but they also can cook, and elect to do so, when presented with easy-to-operate devices, new research finds.

The surprising findings, outlined in a study in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B, demonstrate that our closest evolutionary relatives have nearly all of the inherent skills necessary to accomplish basic cooking. This, in turn, suggests that the skills were present in the common ancestor of chimps and humans.

But don't expect a chimp-hosted cooking show anytime soon.

"There are some ethical issues with providing the chimpanzees access to actual fire -- given the danger," co-author Alexandra Rosati of Yale University's Department of Psychology told Discovery News. She explained that the cooking devices used in the study were chosen and presented with chimp safety in mind.

The study, co-authored by Felix Warneken of Harvard University's Department of Psychology, actually consisted of nine different experiments. In the first, chimps were presented with a raw or cooked sweet potato at room temperature, to see which type they preferred. The vast majority went for the cooked potato.

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