All babies love to play and young chimpanzees are no exception. Researchers in Kibale National Park in Uganda have noticed something: young female chimps will play with sticks like they are dolls! “The stick serves no immediate function, they just carry it–sometimes for a few minutes, other times for hours,” says an e-mail by study leader Richard Wrangham, a biological anthropologist at Harvard University. “Carriers regularly take sticks into the nests they rest in during the day, something that isn’t done with other objects. Individuals are [also] known to play with their sticks while in their nests.”

Similar behavior has noticed with animals in zoos, too. Captive female monkeys have been noticed to prefer doll toys, while the males play with trucks.

Read more about baby chimps and their toys on National Geographic News

Get the facts on chimps in the Creature Feature.

Photograph by Michael Poliza, National Geographic/Getty Images