Bonobos, the ‘hippie chimps,’ might not be so mellow after all

It was 5 a.m., and Maud Mouginot was waiting for the Sun to rise over the Kokolopori Bonobo Reserve. Suddenly, two male bonobos—close relatives of chimpanzees—came hurtling out of the darkness, one rushing through the trees, the other giving chase. The terrified cries of the fleeing male suggested this was no friendly game of tag. Mouginot, a biological anthropologist at Boston University, hadn’t expected such behavior from bonobos, which, unlike chimps, have a reputation for making love, not war . But research by Mouginot and colleagues, published today in Current Biology , shows male bonobos often do engage in aggressive behavior —even more so than male chimps. Whereas chimpanzee violence is intense and indiscriminate, however, male bonobos don’t kill one another; they also almost exclusively pick fights with fellow males. The discovery adds important nuance to our understanding of bonobo social behavior, says Joseph Feldblum, an evolutionary anthropologist at Duke University who didn’t participate in the study. “It’s always valuable to complicate the simple stories.” Chimps ( Pan troglodytes ) and bonobos ( Pan paniscus ) are the closest surviving relatives of modern humans. That makes them interesting subjects for scientists studying how aggression evolved in our own species. But the two apes are very different in their behavior. Chimps are patriarchal, forming all-male coalitions that p...
Source: Science of Aging Knowledge Environment - Category: Geriatrics Source Type: research