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📌 The Question:

Which one of the following makes a tool with a stick to scrap insects from a hole in a tree or a log of wood?

(a) Fishing cat
(b) Orangutan
(c) Otter
(d) Sloth bear

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✅ Correct Answer: (b) Orangutan

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🧑‍🏫 Classroom Explanation

Among the given animals, orangutans are well-documented users of tools in the wild.

• Orangutans use sticks and twigs to extract insects from holes in trees and logs.
• They also use leaves as gloves, umbrellas, and sponges, showing advanced problem-solving ability.
• This behaviour reflects cognitive sophistication and learning capacity among great apes.

Other options:

• Fishing cat – uses claws and paws, not tools
• Otter – uses stones mainly to crack shells, not sticks for probing
• Sloth bear – uses claws and snout, not tools

Hence, option (b) is correct.

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⚡ Curiosity Raiser

Tool-making is not a human monopoly — intelligence sometimes hides in the forest canopy 🐒🌳

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📚 Enrich Notes (UPSC Edge)

• Tool use in animals is associated with:
  • Higher cognitive ability
  • Learning and cultural transmission
• Common tool-using animals:
  • Chimpanzees
  • Orangutans
  • Sea otters
  • New Caledonian crows

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🕊️ IAS Monk Whisper

“When nature thinks, it invents — quietly, patiently, precisely.”