Biased Reporter Says Capuchin Monkeys Are The Best At Cracking Open Nuts

Discovery’s Jennifer Viegas writes a total puff piece about wild bearded capuchin monkeys, to whom she fawningly refers as “the real nut-cracking kings.” Apparently a team of scientists led by Qing Liu of the University of Georgia recently did some study or other of the way Brazilian capuchins make anvils out of logs and use stones as hammer to crack open palm nuts. This is apparently a big deal and Viegas thinks the monkeys are super-smart.

The researchers report that,

Capuchins are sensitive to certain properties of the pits they use in nut-cracking, preferring to use pits that require the fewest strikes to crack nuts. Capuchins assessed the effectiveness of the pits either by positioning the nut, using the nut as an extension of their hand, or by striking the nut with the stone, thereby indirectly gaining information about the pit.

Viegas is extremely impressed with this, the way monkeys used trial-and-error to hone their nut-cracking technique, learning things like the fact that the “fly-off rate was significantly higher in shallow pits than in medium pits.”

Yeah, well. You know who else is really awesome at opening nuts? Me, that’s who. You don’t have to tell me about nut positioning or fly-off rates. (A “fly-off” is when either nut or shell goes shooting off into the air.) Believe me, I know all about those kinds of things. I’m been opening nuts for years. Pistachios, mostly. And I like to think I’ve gotten pretty darn good at it. And without the use of any fancy or very simple “tools” either. No, I use nothing but my own fingers. And I’ve got the scars to prove it. Sure, mis-cracks and fly-offs happen to the best of us, human or monkey. I’ve lost many perfectly edible nuts in my time, under the oven, or down the space between the counter and the stove-top. I won’t deny it.

But I will say this, here and now: I challenge any wild bearded capuchin monkey to successfully open more pistachio nuts in a shorter amount of time than me. Any day they want to try it. We can do it right in my kitchen. They can sit right up on the counter, next to the fridge, as long as they don’t poop everywhere. We can get someone with a stop-watch and one of those little hand-clickers to be a judge. As long as its a neutral party, who won’t, like, count partially cracked shells as fully opened for the monkeys just because the monkeys are just monkeys and so AMAZING and humanlike at using their tools and everything. As long as everything’s on the up and up, I like my chances against anyone. Or any monkey. We’ll see who’s the real nut-cracking king.

You tell your capuchin pals, Jennifer Viegas. Tell them to bring their stone hammers, too. And their scientifically-chosen, custom-pitted wooden anvils. They’re gonna need ‘em.