Human ethnographic knowledge covers hundreds of societies, whereas chimpanzee ethnography encompasses at most 15 communities. Using termite fishing as a window into the richness of chimpanzee cultural diversity, we address a potential sampling bias with 39 additional communities across Africa. Previously, termite fishing was known from eight locations with two distinguishable techniques observed in only two communities. Here, we add nine termite-fishing communities not studied before, revealing 38 different technical elements, as well as community-specific combinations of three to seven elements. Thirty of those were not ecologically constrained, permitting the investigation of chimpanzee termite-fishing culture. The number and combination of elements shared among individuals were more similar within communities than between them, thus supporting community-majority conformity via social imitation. The variation in community-specific combinations of elements parallels cultural diversity in human greeting norms or chopstick etiquette. We suggest that termite fishing in wild chimpanzees shows some elements of cumulative cultural diversity.

人类的民族志学知识涵盖了数百个社会，而黑猩猩的民族志学则涵盖了最多15个社区。利用白蚁捕捞作为了解黑猩猩文化多样性的窗口，我们解决了非洲另外39个社区的潜在抽样偏差。以前，在八个地方就知道了白蚁捕鱼，仅在两个社区就观察到了两种可区分的技术。在这里，我们添加了9个之前未研究的白蚁捕捞社区，揭示了38个不同的技术要素，以及3到7个要素的社区特定组合。其中有三十只没有受到生态限制，因此可以对黑猩猩白蚁捕捞养殖进行调查。个人之间共享的元素的数量和组合在社区内比在他们之间更相似，从而通过社会模仿来支持社区多数认同。特定于社区的元素组合的变化与人类问候规范或筷子礼节中的文化多样性相似。我们建议在野生黑猩猩中捕捞白蚁显示出累积文化多样性的某些要素。