It May Not Be Art, But..

Taken together, however, the weight of evidence from chimpanzees, macaques, birds, orcas, and other species led most observers of animal behavior in 2000 to believe that some animals do indeed possess culture. If animals do have culture, though, it is obviously of a much simpler kind than that possessed by human beings. Compared with the great human cultural achievements of art, science, and technology, animals will never measure up. But perhaps it is wrong to measure animals by human standards. “The ‘culture’ label befits any species, such as the chimpanzee, in which one community can readily be distinguished from another by its unique suite of behavioral characteristics,” said ethologist (expert on animal behavior) Frans B. M. de Waal of the Yerkes Regional Primate Research Center and Department of Psychology at Atlanta's Emory University in an editorial accompanying the 1999 Nature report on chimpanzees. “Biologically speaking, humans have never been alone--now the same can be said of culture.” Scientists expected that future research would clarify the differences as well as the similarities between human and animal culture.