Chimpanzees at Fongoli, in Senegal, have been shown fashioning wooden spears and using them to hunt, according to a short clip released by PBS Nature. The footage shows the animals preparing tools by hand and putting them to use against prey such as bushbabies, small nocturnal primates that live in the region.
The clip is drawn from a PBS Nature documentary titled HumanLike: The Chimps of Fongoli, which premiered on Wednesday, November 11, 2026. The short video was posted on the broadcaster's YouTube channel to promote the program, and it presents the behavior as a visible example of the chimpanzees' tool use rather than as the result of a formal study.
The promotional material does not provide details that would place the behavior in a scientific context. It does not name the researchers who observed the chimps, give figures on how often the spears are made or how successful the hunts are, or explain whether the practice has been documented in a published paper. Without those details, the clip offers a glimpse of the behavior but not a full account of its significance.
Chimpanzees are well known for using objects as tools, from sticks used to fish for insects to stones used to crack nuts. Spear-making and hunting with spears would add to that record, and the documentary appears to focus on how the Fongoli group's behavior compares with that of other chimpanzee communities, though the source material does not spell out those comparisons.