Manipulative and Technological Skills Do Not Require a Slow Life History

A recent developmental study reveals that—at least in primates—a slow life history might be a prerequisite for skilled manipulation and technological behavior. This supposition, however, demands critical evaluation because other taxa with a much shorter lifespan also exhibit dexterous object handling and material technology. By examining object-handling and nest-building data from, respectively, mice and birds, we show that a slow life history does not govern the evolution of manipulative and technological ability. More generally, we highlight the need for a comparative, cross-taxa approach to understand drivers—such as differences in life history, ecology, task complexity, and brain size—of seemingly sophisticated behavior.

Publication: Alexis J. Breen, et al., Manipulative and Technological Skills Do Not Require a Slow Life History, Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution (2023). DOI: 10.3389/fevo.2021.635802

Original Story Source: Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology