Are Humans the Only Animals That Use Tools? The Evidence Says No
False. Chimpanzees, crows, capuchin monkeys, sea otters, bottlenose dolphins, elephants, and octopuses all use tools. Some — including chimpanzees and New Caledonian crows — manufacture tools from raw materials. Humans are exceptional tool users, not unique ones.
"Humans are the only animals that use tools." is a myth. The scientific consensus is clear, the primary sources are documented above, and the claim does not survive scrutiny. Read on for the full evidence.
"Humans are the only animals that use tools."
Many species use tools. Chimpanzees use sticks to extract termites, rocks to crack nuts, and leaves as sponges. New Caledonian crows make hooks from twigs. Sea otters use rocks to crack shellfish. Tool use has been documented in over 20 species.
This claim was once considered definitional — what separated humans from all other animals was the use of tools. That view collapsed definitively in 1960 when Jane Goodall observed chimpanzees stripping leaves from twigs to create termite-fishing tools in Gombe, Tanzania. When she reported this finding to her mentor Louis Leakey, he responded: "Now we must redefine tool, redefine Man, or accept chimpanzees as humans." In the decades since, tool use has been documented in an ever-growing list of species.
Chimpanzees: The Most Sophisticated Non-Human Tool Users
Chimpanzees use tools in multiple contexts and some of these uses qualify not just as tool use but as tool manufacture — shaping raw materials into functional tools. In Gombe and other sites, chimps strip leaves from twigs to create "fishing probes" for extracting termites and ants from mounds. In West Africa, populations use stone anvils and hammers to crack oil palm nuts — a behaviour that requires selecting appropriately sized stones, transporting them to nut sites, and applying precise force. Chimps use leaves as sponges to extract water from tree holes, crumple leaves to make them more absorbent first. Different chimpanzee populations have different tool cultures — sets of tool-use behaviours transmitted socially rather than genetically, which researchers have described as the beginnings of cultural traditions.
Birds: New Caledonian Crows
New Caledonian crows (Corvus moneduloides) are among the most impressive non-primate tool users documented. They manufacture hooks from plant stems by bending and splitting the material — creating tools with a specific shape for extracting larvae from wood. Experimental work has shown that these crows understand causal relationships between tools and outcomes at levels comparable to 5–7 year old children. They will select the correct tool for a task, plan ahead to collect tools for future use, and even innovate novel solutions to unfamiliar problems. Rooks and other corvids have been shown to use tools in experimental settings even without prior training.
Marine Mammals and Other Species
Bottlenose dolphins in Shark Bay, Australia, carry marine sponges on their beaks while foraging on the seafloor — using the sponge to protect their rostrums from abrasion and stinging animals. This behaviour is transmitted from mother to offspring. Sea otters routinely use rocks as anvils to crack shellfish on their chests while floating on their backs. Captive and wild elephants have been observed using branches to swat flies, sticks to scratch themselves, and objects to plug electric fence holes. Octopuses collect coconut shell halves and carry them for later use as portable shelters — a behaviour that requires transporting a tool for future use, one of the more cognitively demanding forms of tool use.
The Verdict
Humans are exceptional tool users — in the sophistication, diversity, and cumulative nature of our tool cultures, we stand apart from other species. But we are not unique in using tools at all. Tool use has been documented in chimpanzees, bonobos, gorillas, orangutans, several corvid species, bottlenose dolphins, sea otters, elephants, octopuses, and more. The definitional distinction failed in 1960 and has not been revived.
Primary Sources
Frequently Asked Questions
Are humans the only animals that use tools?
No. Tool use has been documented in chimpanzees, New Caledonian crows, bottlenose dolphins, sea otters, elephants, octopuses, and many other species. Some — including chimps and crows — manufacture tools from raw materials. Humans are exceptional but not unique tool users.
Which animals make tools, not just use them?
New Caledonian crows manufacture hooks from twigs and strips of plant material. Chimpanzees strip leaves from sticks to create termite probes and modify other tools. Orangutans craft whistles from leaves. "Making" vs "using" a found object is a spectrum, but multiple species clearly modify materials to create tools.
What was Jane Goodall's discovery about chimpanzees?
In 1960 at Gombe, Tanzania, Goodall observed a chimpanzee she named David Greybeard stripping leaves from a twig and inserting it into a termite mound to extract termites. This was the first documented observation of a non-human animal manufacturing and using a tool. It forced a major revision of how scientists defined humans.
Do any animals use tools to help other animals?
This is rare but has been observed. Some corvids have been seen helping conspecifics access tools. There are anecdotal reports of elephants helping other elephants with tool-related tasks. The clearest examples involve cooperation rather than tool-sharing specifically.
What makes human tool use different from animal tool use?
Scale, cumulative culture, and abstraction. Human tools are designed with non-immediate future use in mind, built on knowledge accumulated across generations, and abstracted into complex systems (machinery, computers) that depend on thousands of prior inventions. No other species has shown comparable cumulative technological culture, even though the basic act of using an object as a tool is shared with many species.
How We Verified This Claim
SmartAss Facts evaluates every popular belief against a three-tier source hierarchy: primary sources (peer-reviewed research, government datasets, and institutional reports), secondary sources (reputable journalism citing the primary), and tertiary sources (general reference). Only primary sources are cited.
For this myth — Humans are the only animals that use tools. — we reviewed the cited primary sources above, cross-referenced against independent scientific literature, and confirmed the verdict with the consensus position of relevant scientific bodies. Last reviewed: 2026-05-25.
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