Male macaques who use stone tools show different social patterns than non-users

On a small island off Thailand's coast, scientists watching macaques crack open shellfish with stones discovered something that reaches far beyond primate behavior: the tools an animal uses may quietly reshape the social world it inhabits. Male long-tailed macaques use stone tools far more than females, yet this practice carries no rank or privilege — it simply marks a different way of moving through the group. Most strikingly, those who do not use tools tend to cluster together, while tool users associate freely with everyone, suggesting that shared technology may dissolve certain social boun