Topical Tuesdays from The Week Junior offers fascinating news stories with free teaching activities every week.
The big story this week looks at two groups of monkeys in Southeast Asia, living on islands that are a mere six miles apart.
These long-tailed macaques have been studied by scientists in the way they use stone tools. They carefully select rocks to crack open the shells of various shellfish, so that they can eat the innards.
Strangely, one group would keep their tools for reuse, while the other on the neighbouring island would cast away their stones having used them just once.
These hammerstones used by the two groups were so distinct that scientists could tell which island’s macaques had used them, simply by looking at them.
Why is this important? Well, these behavioural differences are examples of culture, something that’s typically just a human trait. It implies that different groups of monkeys can develop their own traditions of behaviour in their own environments.
Researchers also believe this could be helpful for any scientists exploring how early humans used stone tools.
This PDF resource includes this article, as well as accompanying activity ideas:
To find out more about The Week Junior and to download its free resources, please go to schools.theweekjunior.co.uk.
Find the whole range of free Topical Tuesday resources here.
Looking for smarter ways to assess primary English?
Find out more here >
Welcome, enter your email to get yo1ur
FREE resource download!
Welcome back! Please login to get your
FREE resource download!
Thanks! Please enter a password to sign up
and get your FREE resource download!
