The curious case of great ape curiosity and how it is shaped by sociality

Although curiosity has huge implications for human creativity and learning, its evolutionary roots function in animals remain poorly understood. Modern humans, who lack natural predators, thrive with curiosity, but our ancestors faced more hazardous environments that would not necessarily favor individual curiosity. Instead, being curious may have undergone selection interaction sociality. Our closest living relatives, the great apes (henceforth apes) evolved facing conditions like as such, can help us understand functions of expression non-human species. In this study, we defined a combination behavioral traits neophilia, exploration diversity, prolonged interest exploring novelty compared it, under similar captive across four ape species (N = 101): Pan troglodytes, paniscus, Pongo abelii, pygmaeus. Results revealed followed linear gradient accordance their We propose social hypothesis to explain observed pattern, reflecting those individuals highly species, bonobos chimpanzees, regularly are accompanied by conspecifics, thereby accustomed an abundance cues, leading inhibited when alone, solitary orangutans. As study implies interlinked Further, subset sample 46) enabled examine if benefits problem-solving skills, data did support such link.