Although we have never witnessed Burrito build his own nest with blankets, as we have mentioned in other blog posts, he will often sleep in someone elses’ nest. Today, I caught Burrito engaging a behavior we, at CSNW, call Phantom Nesting. This is a behavior both he and Foxie occasionally do, which involves clapping and running their clasped hands along the fence, the wall, and/or the floor. Interestingly, this is not a behavior that is seen in the wild, and is rarely seen at all. As far as we know, the behavior has only been observed in a few captive individuals, but definitely seems to be related to nesting.
*Editor’s Note (from Diana): we don’t know much about this behavior. We’d love to hear from others who work with chimpanzees both in captivity and in the wild to find out if you’ve observed nesting behavior in the absence of “normal” nesting material and/or if you’ve seen the same clapping and arm movements described above and shown in the video below.
Last Friday when Foxie was doing this phantom nest building I slipped a blanket under the caging for her to use. She took the blanket and put it over her head and let it fall down her back which is a way some of the CE7 start to build a nest. Later in the day when Diana and I were cleaning the play room Diana witnesses Foxie using a scarf in the same over the back technique.
One day both Foxie and Burrito will build magnificent nests just like the rest of them do, it’s just a matter of time.
How very interesting. Jackie you are GREAT at these teaching videos. Please do more. I love learning more about chimpanzee behavior.
I find this video facinating, yet at the same time I’m sad that Burrito and Foxie were denied the chance to learn from their mothers how to build a nest in the wild.
Hang in there Foxie and Burrito! You’ll get the hang of it!
Thank you Jackie for the video and Denice for more information. I agree with you, we just have to have patience. Foxie and Burrito will surprise us one day!
MS – I coudn’t agree more. Those were the exact same emotions I felt while watching/reading this blog entry. Oh, I do hope they build beautiful nests one day.
I went back and watched the other CSNW nesting videos and does Foxie always attempt her nests in corners? I noticed that Burrito was in the corner also, Jody, Missy & Jamie seem to make them anywhere. Whoever came up with the term “Phantom Nesting” did a great job of naming it. I was watching the 06-06-2009 video of Foxie nesting, again she’s in the corner. Her movements are in a circular motion around the wall as if in her mind half of her nest is already built, she’s just patting it down like Missy does, so she adds the section behind her back. Voila, she has a nest!
How “hard wired” is nesting behavior? Or is it completely learned as a child? Do we know?
Yes! I have seen this before with a group I recently worked with in captivity. For the past year and half I have been studying as a graduate student in the Cognitive Evolution Group. Our chimps did something almost identical. I rarely recall them making the actual clap sound with their hands. However, they would gather enrichment items (often times to a corner like in the video above), clasp their hands and move their arms in a circular motion over their head. We always thought this was very interesting and I had never observed this in the other captive group I worked with in Kentucky. Thanks for sharing the video!
Candy – You’re right, they do tend to perform their phantom nesting in a corner, and their arm movements do seem as though they are patting down the edges of an imaginary nest. What’s really strange is that some chimps who don’t nest (like Foxie) will actually move blankets and straw out of the way to make a phantom nest.
Cindy – We can’t say with any certainty, but there seems to be some instinctive component to nest-making. My guess is that there is an innate drive, and possibly some rudimentary knowledge, but much of it is learned and fine-tuned early in life.
Is it possible that these chimps learned the actions from older, chimps while in lab captivity without proper nesting materials? The older, possible wild captured, chimps perhaps remembered their mothers building nests and still went through the motions kind of like building a “pretend nest” due to lacking nest materials.
econobiker – we’re really just not sure. I think this would make an excellent study. I did ask around, and the consensus is that this behavior is not uncommon in captive chimpanzees, but it seems that it’s not observed, at least not by those I queried, in the wild. I don’t know if it’s observed in sanctuaries in Africa.
Most chimpanzees caught in the wild, though, were caught as infants, so it’s difficult to say if they were old enough to retain memories.