Robust capuchin tool use cognition in the wild

Most of the studies on primate cognition focus on Catarrhines primates closely related to humans. One alternative primate model for understanding primate cognition is the Platyrrhine capuchin monkey (genus Cebus and Sapajus), which has several convergent traits to hominins. Although capuchins have been targets of cognition studies in laboratories for decades, primates in captivity lack the complete social structures and ecological factors associated with free-ranging environments. Increasing the focus to wild capuchins represents a welcome change to complement captive primate cognition studies in the past decades. Here I do a non-exhaustive review of cognition research on wild robust capuchins (Sapajus), focusing on tool use. Those studies are on the rise and are a source of valuable information to understand primate cognition in natural, evolutionary valid environments, where cognition can be tested and studied in situations similar to those in which those traits evolved.