![]() Within chimp society, alpha-males guard fertile females and often fight over reproductive success.Ĭhimpanzee and bonobo societies are incredible reflections of our own cultures and offer us a chance to reconnect with our ancestors. Many people believe this behavior is the secret to the peaceful nature of bonobos, especially in comparison to the competitive nature of sex within chimp troops. Sexual activity is casual in bonobo society and isn’t confined to female-male relationships. Bonobos use social sexual contact, colloquially dubbed as the ‘bonobo handshake’, to diffuse tension and avoid conflict. One of the ways bonobos avoid conflict related to food sharing is through sex. Bonobos prefer to share their meals, even with bonobos not in their social group. Research at Lola has found that bonobos are considerate and empathetic, even to strangers. Lola ya Bonobo, a PASA wildlife center in the Democratic Republic of Congo, is the only sanctuary for bonobos in the world, helping to rescue, care for, and release them. Studies of evolutionary differences between chimps and bonobos have been conducted at many PASA sanctuaries. In contrast, when presented with the same scenario, chimps secrete testosterone, which is related to aggression. In response to conflict, bonobos release a stress hormone that encourages social bonding for reassurance. They have never been known to kill their own kind, and they have evolved to avoid conflict. Peace is almost universal across bonobo communities. ![]() Bloodshed is a trait shared by chimp and human society, but rarely seen with bonobos. Male chimps live in a society ruled by competition exhibited through sexual aggression and conflict that is sometimes deadly. The females ensure peace within their community and between their neighbors, contrasting with the often hostile interactions between chimp groups. This is possible because female alliances work to prevent any male aggression, making up for size with numbers. ![]() One of the biggest differences between our evolutionary relatives is that in bonobo society females are in charge. While chimps age into a darker face, bonobos are born with a darker face and pink lips. This contrasts with the strong and sturdy chimpanzee. Their long legs, narrow shoulders, and small head add up to a slender build. So, what are the key differences between chimps and bonobos? These species not only differ in appearance, but also in their social structure, behavior, and emotions.īonobos are graceful apes. Both species are more closely related to humans than gorillas or orangutans, and we can gain many insights into human evolution by studying the abilities and behaviors of these animals. However, we now know that we share approximately 98.7% of our DNA with chimps and bonobos. At a stretch, they speculate, this evolution may have caused the human face “to become more behind-like”.Many of us were raised with the belief that our closest genetic relatives are chimpanzees. This evolution, they continued, suggests that the face took over important properties shared with primate buttocks and became the go-to area for “socio-sexual signalling”. “The present study demonstrates that chimpanzees, unlike humans, show a ‘behind inversion effect’ and suggests that identity recognition ‘moved up’ from the bottom to the face in our uprightly walking species,” the team concluded. The results, the researchers speculate, suggest that our reliance on recognising faces to know who’s who could have evolved from an earlier reliance on buttocks. ![]() The so-called inversion effect means that humans process information about faces in a totally different way to how they process information about other objects. While the importance of buttocks in chimpanzee society is well-known – the anogenital region of chimpanzee buttocks swells and reddens around the time of ovulation, for example – it wasn’t known if they processed characteristics of individual buttocks in the same way as humans process faces. The image in the top-right shows distinguishing features of chimpanzee buttocks (left) and human faces (right) Mariska E. A chimpanzee is asked to match upright and inverted images of faces, buttocks and feet.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |