Qualla: Primate Research Institute

Primate Research Institute: Introduction

Mon, 16 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

In 1953, on the tiny island of Koshima off Japan's southern coast, a young macaque named Imo did something no wild monkey had been documented doing before: she carried a sweet potato to a stream and washed the dirt off before eating it. Within a generation, nearly every monkey in the troop had adopted the practice, some even seasoning their potatoes in seawater. That observation, made by researchers from Kyoto University, became the first strong evidence of cultural behavior in nonhuman animals and helped launch a field of study that would eventually find its permanent home 150 kilometers east of Kyoto, in the castle town of Inuyama. The Primate Research Institute, founded there in 1967, has spent more than half a century asking one of science's most humbling questions: what separates us from our closest relatives?

Primate Research Institute: Two Rivals, One Vision

Mon, 16 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

The institute owes its existence to an unlikely partnership forged in postwar Japan. Kinji Imanishi of Kyoto University had pioneered the field study of nonhuman primates in their natural habitats, trekking into forests to observe monkeys as social beings rather than laboratory s...

Primate Research Institute: The Chimpanzee Who Learned Numbers

Mon, 16 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

The institute's most famous resident was a chimpanzee named Ai. Arriving as a young chimp in 1977, she became the subject of the Ai Project, a decades-long study led by primatologist Tetsuro Matsuzawa that explored the cognitive boundaries between humans and great apes. Ai learne...

Primate Research Institute: A Campus Among Castles

Mon, 16 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

The institute's setting in Inuyama is no accident of bureaucratic convenience. The city already held one of Japan's oldest original castles, the 1537 Inuyama Castle, and the surrounding Chubu region offered forested landscapes ideal for primate study. The campus itself is substan...

Primate Research Institute: Legacy Under a Cloud

Mon, 16 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

The institute's story has not been without controversy. In 2020, Kyoto University revealed that research funds had been misappropriated during Matsuzawa's tenure as director from 2006 to 2012, involving the construction of chimpanzee facilities. The scandal led to Matsuzawa's dis...