The Tool Desk
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Animals use tools to get food, protect themselves and solve practical problems—and tool use is not limited to primates. Chimpanzees probe termite mounds with sticks, New Caledonian crows make tools from plant material, and coconut octopuses carry shells for shelter. These examples show a range of actions, from selecting an object to modifying it, but they do not form an intelligence ranking: what an animal does is observable; what it understands or plans requires careful interpretation.
What counts as animal tool use?
In animal-behavior research, tool use describes an animal bringing an external object into an action that helps achieve a practical result. The examples below include objects used directly, such as a stick inserted into a termite mound, and environmental surfaces used in a tool-mediated action, such as coral against which a fish strikes a shell. Some animals modify or carry their tools; others select an object or use a feature of their surroundings.
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That range matters. Tool use is not one behavior, and a tool does not have to be manufactured to be useful. Nor does one striking observation establish that every member of a species behaves the same way. Tool use can be habitual in particular populations, tied to local ecological opportunities, or documented in a narrower set of circumstances. Reviews of birds, mammals and aquatic animals describe varied examples rather than a single universal pattern (Emery and Clayton’s review of tool use and physical cognition; a review of aquatic-animal tool use).
Which animals use tools, and what do they use them for?
These nine species illustrate different materials, actions and functions. Food gathering is the most common purpose in this group, but a tool can also offer protection. The examples are not ranked from least to most intelligent.
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1. Chimpanzees: probing for termites with stripped sticks
Chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes) strip leaves from a stick and insert it into a termite mound. Termites cling to the probe, which the chimpanzee can then pull out and eat. The stick turns a narrow opening into a route to food that the animal could not simply reach with its fingers.
Termite fishing is one example of a broader tool repertoire. Chimpanzees also use tools to crack nuts and forage in other ways, as discussed in research on tool use in birds and mammals. The important point is not that every chimpanzee uses every tool, but that the behavior includes more than one tool type and food-gathering task.
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2. New Caledonian crows: manufactured sticks and cut-leaf tools
New Caledonian crows (Corvus moneduloides) make tools for retrieving prey. They manufacture stick tools and cut tools from Pandanus leaves. Rather than merely picking up an object in its natural form, a crow changes plant material into a tool suited to reaching prey.
This makes the crow a useful contrast with animals that mainly select a stone, shell or other object and use it without shaping it. Tool manufacture is an observable behavior; it does not, by itself, establish that the bird thinks in the same way a human craftsperson does. The distinction between tool making and tool selection is discussed in work on how animals interact with the physical world.
3. Sea otters: stones for opening shellfish
Sea otters (Enhydra lutris) use stones while feeding on shellfish. An otter can strike shellfish against a stone used as an anvil, or use a stone as a hammer. In either case, the rock helps break open food that is otherwise protected by a hard shell.
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This is a clear marine-mammal example of an animal bringing an external object into feeding. It also shows why the action matters as much as the object: the stone is useful because it supplies a hard surface or striking force. The behavior appears in a review of tool use by aquatic animals.
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Some bottlenose dolphins (Tursiops spp.) in Shark Bay, Australia, wear marine sponges over the rostrum—the front part of the snout—while foraging on the seafloor. The sponge provides a covering as the dolphin searches among the bottom substrate for prey.
This is a localized foraging practice, not a behavior to attribute to every bottlenose dolphin. It differs from striking or probing: the animal carries an object on its body while it searches. The example is included in research on animal interactions with the physical world and in the review of aquatic tool use.
5. Bearded capuchins: stones for nuts and sticks for digging
Wild bearded capuchins (Sapajus libidinosus) use stones to crack nuts and sticks to dig for tubers. The two examples show that tool use within one species can involve different materials and actions: a stone delivers force to open a hard food, while a stick helps access food in the ground.
These behaviors depend on ecological opportunity and are documented in particular populations. They should not be generalized to all capuchins in all habitats. Research on primate material culture emphasizes how local conditions and populations matter when describing tool traditions (Koops, Visalberghi and van Schaik’s review).
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6. Orangutans: sticks for extracting resources
Orangutans (Pongo spp.) use sticks in several contexts, especially in Sumatran populations. Reviewed examples include using stick tools to extract resources from fruit or from tree holes. In these tasks, a stick serves as an implement that helps reach something otherwise difficult to obtain.
“Orangutans use tools” is a broad summary, not a claim that all orangutans perform the same task. The relevant population and behavior should be named where known. Reviews of primate material culture and tool use in birds and mammals describe these examples in the wider context of foraging tools.
7. Long-tailed macaques: stones to open food
Island-dwelling long-tailed macaques (Macaca fascicularis aurea) use stones to open molluscs, crabs and nuts. A stone can help crack or break into food, extending what the macaque can access. The range of food types is a reminder that the same broad material—a stone—can serve different feeding tasks.
The behavior is associated with island populations and belongs to the varied set of primate tool traditions described in the ecology of primate material culture. It is more precise to describe the populations in which the behavior is reported than to imply that all long-tailed macaques use stones in this way.
8. Coconut octopuses: shells as portable shelter
The coconut octopus (Amphioctopus marginatus) uses coconut shells as protection. Instead of using an object to extract food, the octopus uses the shell as a shelter. This defensive function broadens the picture of animal tools beyond feeding.
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The shell is an external object that offers cover, and carrying it makes protection available beyond the place where the object was found. The example appears in a 2024 primer on animal understanding of the physical world (Taylor and Johnston, Current Biology).
9. Tuskfish: using coral to break cockles
Tuskfish break open cockles by hitting them against coral heads. Here the animal uses a feature of its surroundings as part of the action: the coral provides the hard surface that helps crack the prey’s shell. It is a tool-mediated feeding behavior even though the example is not a portable, hand-held implement.
This case is useful because it widens the question from “Which object does the animal carry?” to “How does the animal use an external object or surface to accomplish a task?” The example is included in the 2024 primer on animal interactions with the physical world.
What do these tool users have in common—and how do they differ?
All nine examples involve an animal using something outside its body to change what it can do. Beyond that, the similarities are limited. A crow cuts plant material into a tool; a dolphin carries a sponge on its snout; a chimpanzee strips leaves from a stick; and a tuskfish uses coral as a striking surface. These are different practical solutions, not interchangeable evidence of a single kind of intelligence.
- Food access: Termite fishing, prey retrieval, shellfish opening, nut cracking, tuber digging, mollusc and crab opening, and cockle breaking all help animals obtain food.
- Protection: Coconut shells give coconut octopuses shelter, rather than helping them open or collect food.
- Material and action: Examples include probing with sticks, cutting leaves, striking food against stone or coral, carrying a sponge, and using a shell as cover.
- Modification: New Caledonian crows make stick and leaf tools. Other examples include selecting, carrying or using an object or environmental surface without the same kind of tool manufacture.
- Evidence scope: Some behaviors are associated with particular populations or settings. A species-level label should not erase those differences.
Does tool use prove that an animal thinks like a human?
No. Tool use is evidence of an animal’s behavior, but the behavior alone does not prove human-like planning, reasoning or understanding. A careful account separates the observation—such as a crow shaping plant material or a macaque using a stone—from interpretations about the mental processes behind it.
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That does not make the behavior uninteresting. In a 2024 Current Biology primer, Alex H. Taylor and Melissa Johnston write that “These sophisticated behavioral interactions with their physical environment suggest that animals might have a deep understanding of their physical world at a cognitive level.” That is the authors’ interpretation of the examples and research they discuss, not a settled conclusion that every tool-using animal has the same kind of understanding.
Research also has to distinguish the behavior itself from how it is learned and studied. A 2020 review of individual learning in animal tool use included 105 publications and identified 15 tool types in the reports it considered; sticks and stones were the most common categories in that dataset. The authors reported that 80.0% of those publications involved captive subjects. That percentage describes the review’s included publications—not the share of tool use that happens in captivity in nature—and the authors noted that research effort and species frequency in the wild were not controlled. The dataset is therefore a view of the published literature, not a complete inventory of animal tool use (Bandini and colleagues’ 2020 review).
How were these nine examples chosen?
The examples represent the range described in the cited reviews and primer: birds, mammals, a cephalopod and a fish; food gathering as well as protection; and both manufactured implements and selected objects or environmental surfaces. They are illustrative cases, not a ranking, a complete list of tool-using species or a claim that each behavior is equally common or equally well documented across all populations.
Frequently Asked Questions
Are animals born knowing how to use tools?
There is no single answer for all species or behaviors. A review of individual learning in animal tool use examined how learning is studied, but its publication set included many captive-subject studies and does not establish one universal route by which tool behaviors arise.
Does a tool have to be portable for an animal to be using one?
Not necessarily. Some examples involve carried objects, while the tuskfish example uses coral as the surface against which it breaks prey. Describing the action precisely helps avoid treating every tool as a hand-held object.
Are the nine examples a complete list of tool-using animals?
No. They are a selection of examples discussed in the cited reviews and primer, chosen to show different species, materials and purposes. The 2020 review’s 15 tool types describe its included reports, not every tool used by every animal.
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