Spatial abilities of Wild Chimpanzees Pan troglodytes verus

............................................................................................................................. 7 RESUME ................................................................................................................................. 8 ZUSAMMENFASSUNG ............................................................................................................. 9 INTRODUCTION .................................................................................................................... 10 1. The socio-ecological intelligence hypothesis ....................................................................... 10 2. Captive vs. wild animals’ spatial abilities ............................................................................. 11 3. Spatial memory of wild primates ......................................................................................... 12 4. Long-term spatial memory .................................................................................................. 14 5. Spatial orientation mechanism ............................................................................................ 14 6. Spatial abilities of humans ................................................................................................... 17 a) Development .................................................................................................................... 17 b) Unfamiliar landscape ........................................................................................................ 17 c) The eco-cultural hypothesis ............................................................................................. 17 d) Sex differences ................................................................................................................. 18 7. Spatial planning abilities ...................................................................................................... 18 8. Challenges and interests of this study ................................................................................. 20 STUDY SITE AND SPECIE ........................................................................................................ 21 1. Research area ....................................................................................................................... 21 2. Taï Chimpanzees .................................................................................................................. 21 3. Behavioural data collection ................................................................................................. 22 4. The botanic map .................................................................................................................. 24 THESIS OVERVIEW ................................................................................................................ 25 1. Spatial Memory of Wild Chimpanzees ................................................................................. 25 2. Spatial orientation mechanism: Euclidean maps ................................................................ 25 3. Planning Abilities of Chimpanzees ....................................................................................... 25 a. Planning the visit to the most attractive resources ......................................................... 25 b. Planning daily path ........................................................................................................... 26 CHAPTER 1: Forest chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes verus) remember the location of numerous fruit trees .......................................................................................................................................... 27 CHAPTER 2: Sophisticated Euclidean maps in forest chimpanzees .......................................... 46 CHAPTER 3: Chimpanzees plan in advance to visit the most attractive resources .................... 62 CHAPTER 4 Solving the Travel Salesman Problem is a social evolution in Forest Chimpanzees 75 Solving the Travel Salesman Problem is a social evolution in Forest Chimpanzees .................. 75 GENERAL DISCUSSION .......................................................................................................... 85