Abstract: Innovative behaviour achieved through exploration, learning and insight heavily depends on certain motivational, social and ecological conditions of short duration. We propose that more attention should be given to what these conditions are and where they are realized in natural groups of non-human primates. Only to the extent that such favourable conditions were frequently realized in a social structure or an extraspecific environment could selective pressures act on innovative abilities. There is hope that research into field conditions of innovative behaviour will help to identify its selectors in evolution.