 The overlap between individual and social forms of learning has significance for research on non-human, as well as the human, species. The group of wild chimpanzees studied by Hobaiter et al. (2014) began to develop a new behaviour: previously they had used ‘sponges’, made from chewed-up leaves, to soak up drinking water. Some then began to make these sponges from moss instead. The researchers saw one individual develop this behaviour because she re-used an old moss sponge, which had previously been discarded by another chimp. But she did not do this because she had seen the sponge in use. One the one hand, this is a clear case of individual learning: from the chimp’s-eye view the discarded sponge was simply something she happened to have found lying around. On the other hand, this is manifestly a piece of social learning according to Henrich’s definition, for the past action of another chimp greatly eased the inventive burden in discovering that moss could be used as a sponge. Little wonder, then, that the study authors mention this example as part of ‘a growing literature that refutes a strong distinction between individual and social learning’ (2014). As that distinction blurs, so the further question of what culture consists in becomes less clear (Lewens 2017). For there are numerous ways in which activities of one generation can, by altering or maintaining stable features of biotic, social and technical environments, have an influence over what individuals in the following generations end up learning.