History Main / ToolsOfSapience

** The Animorphs themselves tend to avoid morphing sentient creatures for moral reasons, comparing it to [[PuppeteerParasite Yeerk behavior]]. This mostly means they avoid morphing humans, though their [[SapientCetaceans whale and dolphin]] morphs are described as sentient, too, and they rarely worry about morphing into aliens.

* Conventional paleoanthropology divides prehistoric hominins between "pre-human" australopithecines and the early members of ''Homo'', the "human genus" by the employment of stone tools, although since skeletons of both have been found in association with stone tools, it's rather up in the air if australopithecines used tools too. Even prior to modern anthrolopogy, philosophers like [[{{Literature/Confessions}} Augustine of Hippo]] said, when speculating on the possible existence of other beings, that if they wore clothes, used tools, domesticated animals etc. this would show they were sapient and (for Augustine) possessed souls.

* ''WebOriginal/HamstersParadise'': Tool use is often an indicator of higher intelligence but its not a hard-and-fast rule.

* In ''WebOriginal/{{Serina}}'', tools are frequently used by species that are either sapient or coming close to it. We're introduced to the world's first sophonts, the fork-tailed babbling jays, when they drive away a club-wielding bludgebird with flint knives.

* ''Literature/TheSteerswoman'': The "[[OurDemonsAreDifferent demons]]" are initially described as animals, notable only for their [[StarfishAliens bizarre]] biology and extreme danger. After all, they don't use tools or wear clothes, and will casually kill and eat each other if no other food is available. So it floors Rowan when she realizes the "sculptures" they extrude aren't territory markers or oddly shaped egg-sacks (which some of them are), but a ''language'' perceived through their sonar. This discovery of sapience recontextualizes all their behavior up to that point.

* In the Literature/HonorHarrington universe, the Treecats of Sphinx (small, six-limbed arboreals) were originally thought to be nonsentient. It began to dawn on the human colonists that they were wrong when they were seen to use stone-age tools (chipped stone hand-axes and woven nets).

* Creator/ABertramChandler's "Literature/TheCage": Survivors from a crashed starship (on a planet where clothes don't survive due to some aggressive fungus) are captured by aliens and put in a zoo. Attempts to convince the aliens they are sentient by making baskets or [[FirstContactMath demonstrating mathematics]] fail. But when they build a cage and put an [[CallASmeerpARabbit alien mouse]] into it... well, only sentient beings are bastards enough for that.
* In the ''Literature/LittleFuzzy'' novels, the first indication that the Fuzzies were sentient was their use of sharpened sticks to kill invertebrate prey.
* One of the countless hominids on Literature/{{Ringworld}} was a borderline-sentient species which, while unable to use fire in their aquatic habitat, did use flaked stone tools (a borderline example since it is never stated whether or not the species wears clothes).

* In Creator/AnneMcCaffrey's ''Decision at Doona'', human settlers on a new world encounter a village of intelligent cats. Both species assume the other is pre-sentient due to the primitive living conditions in each other's colonies. The aliens decide the humans are intelligent based on a child's ability to play games.

* ''Series/DoctorWho'': In the Fifth Doctor story "[[Recap/DoctorWhos19E3Kinda Kinda]]", the titular beings are initially thought to be non-sentient--but the human scientist points out that their necklaces look remarkably like DNA double-helices.

* The Shantor, [[IntelligentGerbil horse-like aliens]] from ''TabletopGame/FadingSuns'', were not thought sentient until they were seen wielding spears.

** This was largely averted with the second intelligent species in the original draft, the baywulves. As their name suggests, they greatly resemble wolves, right down to the quadrupedal build with no opposable thumbs which prevents the use of anything beyond very simple tools. However, they're still considered sapient and they manage to get around this limitation by domesticating a species of unintelligent species of monkey-like animals that ''do'' have opposable thumbs to make and use the tools for them.

* ''ComicStrip/TheFarSide'' had one comic with a bipedal cow standing behind a table, showing off a bunch of lumpy stone objects. The caption just read, "Cow tools." \\

* Invoked prospectively in ''WebComic/FreeFall'', when Florence is asked how she would recognise a human being ([[ThreeLawsCompliant a very grave question]] for [[AIIsACrapShoot an experimental AI]]).