A new research has made an interesting discovery. Researchers have come to know that cognitive abilities considered to be limited to humans are even present in chimpanzees.

In fact, it has also been found that if chimpanzees are aware of the fact that they have the chance to eat cooked vegetables and have them later, then they are ready to save them for cooking.

Study researchers said that chimps prefer taste of cooked food. Researchers said that the transition to cooked food is considered as an important evolutionary milestone as this skill might have allowed our primitive forebears to increase their diet and have more calories.

A series of experiments were carried out at the Jane Goodall Institute's Tchimpounga Chimpanzee Sanctuary in the Democratic Republic of Congo. There, wild-born chimps were given a chance to prepare food using a ‘cooking device’.

Researchers said that apes chose cooked potato almost 90% of the time when they were given a chance. It was also noticed that they did not mind to wait for a minute for cooked food. Chimps chose the option of cooked food 60% of the time.

“The evidence from our cognitive studies suggests that, even before controlling fire, early hominins understood its benefits and could reason about the outcomes of putting food on fire”, said study’s co-author Alexandra Rosati, an evolutionary biologist at Yale University.

Researchers said that this ability might even have been the motivation for harnessing fires in first place.