What is challenging about tool use? The capuchin's perspective

Capuchin monkeys (genus Cebus) are the most adept and frequent users of tools among monkeys. This chapter uses capuchins as a vehicle to discuss tool use in nonhuman primates, After providing some background on capuchins and an overview of the forms and contexts of tool use commonly observed in this genus, we discuss these studies focusing on the number and kind of relations among object, substrate, and actions with an object that capuchins used to achieve a goal. Capuchins learn to use tool in much the same way that other species do. Understanding how to learn to use tools, and the aspects of using tools that challenge them, gives a new understanding of tool use in our own species as well as other species of nonhuman animals.