{"id":285470,"date":"2026-02-15T15:48:14","date_gmt":"2026-02-15T15:48:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/285470\/"},"modified":"2026-02-15T15:48:14","modified_gmt":"2026-02-15T15:48:14","slug":"are-humans-really-the-only-species-that-trade","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/285470\/","title":{"rendered":"Are humans really the only species that trade?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Trade is fundamental to our way of life  but may not be unique to us, says Leona Williams.<\/p>\n<p>There is evidence to suggest that our closest animal relatives &#8211; monkeys and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.discoverwildlife.com\/animal-facts\/mammals\/great-ape-guide\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">apes<\/a> &#8211; also exchange valuable commodities: for example, grooming for alliance, or sex for food. In experiments, several primate species have also successfully used tokens to request food. Laboratory settings can only reveal so much, however.<\/p>\n<p>A  study of Balinese long-tailed macaques provides compelling evidence of spontaneously arising trade in wild animals.<\/p>\n<p>These monkeys steal valuable, but inedible, items from humans (mobile phones, glasses, cameras) only returning them in exchange for food.<\/p>\n<p> The monkeys also seem to grasp that some items are worth more, holding onto the most valuable steals until presented with the very best foodstuffs &#8211; maximising their payoff.<\/p>\n<p>This may be the first known example of such an economic system in wild animals and could help us understand the origins of our own monetary systems. <\/p>\n<p>Top image: Balinese long-tailed macaques \u00a9 Getty<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Trade is fundamental to our way of life but may not be unique to us, says Leona Williams.&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":285471,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[111,139,69,147,406],"class_list":["post-285470","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-wildlife","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-science","tag-wildlife"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/285470","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=285470"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/285470\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/285471"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=285470"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=285470"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=285470"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}