Gorilla has the ability to use the tool

A gorilla in the Congo farm used a stone to smash dry palm fruit to get the essential oil. This behavior surprised the scientists and changed every thought about gorilla before.

It has long been argued that the use of tools to perform tasks such as crushing hard fruits is only available in humans and smaller chimpanzees.

But in late September, ranchers in eastern Congo saw the 2.5-year-old Itebero gorilla using two crushed stones with a " hammer on anvil " technique, considered one of the behavior using the most complex tools.

" This is a truly unexpected finding," said researcher Patrick Mehlman. He argues that the results show that the use of complex tools is not only available to humans and chimpanzees but can be traced back earlier in the evolutionary chain.

Gottfried Hohmann, a primate expert at the Max Planck Institute in Germany, thinks Itebero's behavior means that gorillas have a greater degree of environmental awareness than we think.

Itebero lived in this camp for a year, after being rescued from poachers. Mehlman believes that Itebero smashes fruits randomly, not mimics humans.

" Animals are really good at beating hard fruits ," said Alecia Lilly, a Rorilla gorilla researcher in Rwanda. " The chimpanzees take many years to reach the same level ."

Itebero's behavior led some scientists to believe that gorillas in nature also use complex tools. Earlier this year, Thomas Breuer's team saw gorillas in the Congo near forest using simple tools. Breuer also said that in 10 years of observation, his team only saw 2 cases of using gorilla tools - using a stick to test the depth of a pond, and a tree branch to bridge.

Breuer said it was difficult to compare the behavior that the group saw in nature with Itebero's more complex behavior that was exposed to humans. But he thinks Itebero's behavior clearly demonstrates that gorilla has the ability to use complex tools, even though they rarely perform.

" Often the use of tools is stimulated by certain needs, and it seems that the gorilla has little need to use tools in the wild, " Breuer explains.

MT ( according to AP )