A group of researchers got an exclusive look at how chimpanzees develop culture among themselves, thanks to a video of a wild population learning to use a new tool.

According to BBC News, the researchers filmed the chimps at a field station in Uganda and noticed them using a sponge-like object to drink water. Upon further analysis, they learned that other members of the group picked it up from the example set by a dominant male.

The team of scientists published a study on their findings in the journal PLOS Biology.

"Researchers have been fascinated for decades by the differences in behavior between chimpanzee communities; some use tools some don't, some use different tools for the same job," Lead researcher Dr. Catherine Hobaiter, a professor at the University of St. Andrews, said in a press release. "These behavioral variations have been described as 'cultural', which in human terms would mean they spread when one individual learns from another; but in most cases they're long established and it's hard to know how they originally spread within a group.

"We were incredibly lucky to be in the right place at the right time to document the appearance and spread of two novel tool-use behaviors, something that is extraordinarily rare in the wild."

One chimpanzee known as Nick, the alpha male of the population, made a sponge out of some moss and a dominant adult female named Nambi had been looking on. Six days later, seven chimpanzees had been using the sponge-like moss to drink water, the last of which even tried to re-use one that a mate set aside.

"We were insanely lucky," Hobaiter told BBC News. "We saw two new versions of this tool use emerge in the chimps [we were watching].

"It might sound trivial, but the chimps [we study] just don't do that."

She said all the different factors aligned to make the new study possible. For example, the watering hole where they developed the new tool was a prime filming location for the wilderness setting.

"Basically, if you saw it done, you learned how to do it, and if you didn't you didn't," she said. "It was just this wonderfully clear example of social learning that no-one had in the wild before.

"We've had that in captivity, we've had indications in the wild, but this was the final little piece of the puzzle."