03/08/2026
Chimpanzees are obsessed with crystals. And they won't give them back.
Researchers in Spain just discovered that our closest living relatives share humanity's ancient fascination with geometric quartz crystals — and the chimps treated them like treasure.
The experiment: Scientists placed two objects on pedestals in front of rescued chimpanzees at the Rainfer Foundation sanctuary near Madrid.
One was a 3.3-kilogram transparent quartz crystal, roughly a foot tall.
The other was a similarly-sized sandstone rock.
Both caught the chimps' attention at first. But within moments, the rock was ignored. The crystal? The alpha female, Manuela, wrenched it off its pedestal. The troop barely let it out of their sight.
One 50-year-old male named Yvan carried it around while climbing and eating cabbage. Another chimp brought the crystal close to his eye and inspected it repeatedly for over 15 minutes.
In a second experiment, chimps were given piles of ordinary pebbles mixed with quartz, calcite, and pyrite crystals.
One female named Sandy sorted through the pile — using her mouth to carry objects to a separate platform — and successfully separated all three crystal types from the pebbles in seconds.
The researchers believe both transparency and geometric shape act as "perceptual attractors."
In nature, almost everything — trees, mountains, rivers, animals — is defined by curves and branching patterns. Crystals are the only natural polyhedrals. The only natural objects with flat surfaces and straight edges.
When our ancestors tried to make sense of their world, crystals stood out.
Evidence shows hominins have been collecting crystals for at least 780,000 years — not as tools, not as weapons, not as jewelry. Just... to have them.
Now we know chimps feel the same way.
And when the experiment ended? Caretakers had to trade bananas and yogurt to get the crystals back.
Several smaller ones were never recovered.
