This Astonishing Image Of A Chimp Tells Us A Lot About The Evolution Of Animal Culture

It shows Adelaida, a subadult female chimpanzee, and she appears to be sporting the latest must-have trend of the Congo Basin: a leafy branch around her neck like a fancy necklace. 

Given these examples, and their curiosity and flexible behavior, they have what some refer to as distinct cultural traditions.

David Morgan

"During this observation, she broke the branch off and seemed to play with it while sitting upright, as well as lying down on the tree branch she is photographed on," David Morgan, a Senior Conservation Scientist and Co-director of the Goualougo Triangle Ape Project at the Lincoln Park Zoo in Chicago, told IFLScience.

"We have seen other individuals (typically juveniles and more often than not females) using plant materials like fruits as sources for play. In another observation, a young female carried around a bundle of small fruits with her in the canopy, between her neck and shoulder as well as hip pouch before discarding," he explained. 

Granted, this look might not earn much praise among Homo sapiens, but experts explain that it shows how chimps have a profound sense of playfulness and a deep relationship to their surroundings. 

It might even suggest that chimpanzees possess something akin to cultural tradition — all of which is a strong indication of complex cognition at work.

“This behavior is further evidence of chimpanzees' deep interaction with their environment," added Morgan 

"On a daily and nightly basis, they interact in complex ways with the flora around them, including making nests, foraging, making tools, and for play – which, taken together, provide examples of some of the most complex behavior in the animal kingdom.”

“Given these examples, and their curiosity and flexible behavior, they have what some refer to as distinct cultural traditions,” he explained.

The origins of cultural tradition?

It’s easy to shrug this off as random or facile behavior, but several studies have looked deeply into the idea of cultural tradition among chimpanzees and believe it might signify something quite profound.

In 2025, research in Zambia showed that chimpanzees would copy “seemingly pointless behaviors” from one another, just like humans do with fashion trends and fads. 

One of the strangest appeared to be a female chimpanzee named Julie who was regularly seen poking grass into her ear and leaving it there, like a weird ornament. 

The behavior did not appear to serve any practical function, but it was later adopted by seven other chimps in the same group, and persisted even after Julie’s death. Some creative chimps even adapted the tradition with their own twist by sticking the grass up their ass (yes, seriously).

It’s widely known that chimps also pass on more pragmatic skills, like tool use, but the fact they also do it with seemingly frivolous behaviors is arguably more intriguing. It’s very easy to imagine the advantage of learning how to “fish” for ants inside a tree, for instance, but what’s the worth in wearing a branch as a necklace? 

From salmon hats to cathedrals

We see similarly strange behavior in other animals considered to be endowed with brain power. 

In the 1980s, a decade known for its own outlandish fashion trends, scientists noticed that orcas in the Puget Sound area of the northeast Pacific were often sporting a dead salmon on their head. 

It started with a single female, first spotted carrying a salmon on her nose. Then, over the following five to six weeks, the trend caught on, until orcas from her own pod and two others were all wearing dead salmon hats.

Astonishingly, this fashion trend seemingly reemerged among the same population of orcas almost 40 years later.

But back in the land of chimps, some researchers have argued that these types of behavior might hint at the evolutionary roots of human culture. 

The first hominins to dabble with paint or shape a pebble could easily be dismissed as futile fad-followers, but it's arguably an early echo of the same forces that eventually paved the way toward cave art, modern practices, cathedrals, and everything else we now call culture. 

Others are more conservative with their views. Morgan explained: “In this case, I would not think this is a ‘fashion fad’ but more in line with the play we see in chimpanzees and this age cohort. Such behavior is not uncommon in the western lowland gorillas who also live in the Goualougo.”

Either way, it’s hard not to look at Adelaida with her leafy neckpiece and wonder whether something deeper is going on than mere chimpish silliness.