Bonobos' Hippie Reputation Ruined

The primate species commonly known as the bonobo is a peaceful relative to the male-dominated, violent common chimpanzee. Females have a higher social status than males in bonobo society and the troupe sometimes comes together for group sex. bonobos have been observed kissing on the lips and are accused of being the most empathic, sensitive primates. The society of the common chimp is much more violent and male dominance is associated with infighting, hunting and meat consumption which are behaviors virtually absent in bonobos.

According to a new study published in Current Biology, the first direct evidence has been found of bonobos hunting and eating the young of other primate species. This is not expected from a peaceful group of monkeys who use sex to resolve conflict.

Three instances of successful hunts by bonobos in which the primate, of another species, was captured and eaten. The researchers found that both sexes hunt together, and the involvement of females is probably due to their high social status. Alliance formations and hunting seem to be intricately related in ape social life.

"In chimpanzees, male-dominance is associated with physical violence, hunting, and meat consumption. By inference, the lack of male dominance and physical violence is often used to explain the relative absence of hunting and meat eating in bonobos. Our observations suggest that, in contrast to previous assumptions, these behaviors may persist in societies with different social relations." Gottfried Hohmann said, an associate of the Max-Planck-Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology.

This new finding challenges the idea that male dominance and aggression leads to the hunting behavior that we see in chimps. Correlation and causation were confused here. Hunting and male dominance positively correlate, but do not have an absolute causative relationship. Apparently, other social and ecological factors lead to hunting.

Early models of the evolution of aggression and humans used the assumption that male dominance and aggression leads to hunting, but the new discovery casts doubt on this explanation. A female dominated troupe of peaceful apes being observed eating baby monkeys is about the strongest refutation possible.

The study was written about in Science Daily last week. LINK

Jimmy Sullivan (6)

Update

Katie Cole, Erica Damon, Amy Kawazoe, Susan Doung:

The researchers from the study think that this behavior was present the whole time, but unknown to science. I think that this behavior has been around awhile, but is just less common in bonobos than chimps, which is why it was overlooked. It is definitely a left over from when bonobos split from chimps. The ecological factors to answer why it is less common in bonobos is still unknown.

Amanda Joyce, Chantal Gomes, Sarah Moltzen:

The females are more aggressive than the males, and the hunting parties include both sexes. Alliances are the most powerful social tool in chimp world, and in bonobos, the females are the leaders and organizers of them.

Sasha Rogers, Hanbing Guo, Maura Mulvey:

Eating other monkeys is definitely about food for bonobos and chimps. They hunt many different types of animals too.

Kiel Boutelle:

I did a little reading on female dominance in apes. In most ape species, males are dominant. High ranking females frequently outrank low ranking males, and females have been known to gang up and chase a male off. In most prosimian species, females dominate society. There is a lot of research done on the topic, you should check it out.

Ada Marie Flores:

No case studies mentioned.

Amanda Sceusa:

The behavior was observed, and a monkey finger was found in bonobo scat.

So Jin Lee:

Bonobos are probably peaceful and nice when it benefits them and violent when it benefits them. Baby eating seems to contradict their peaceful ways, but a bonobo would probably find humans to be incoherent as well. It is all about the umvelt.