Bonobo
The Bonobo , until recently usually called the Pygmy Chimpanzee and less often the Dwarf or Gracile Chimpanzee, is one of the two species comprising the chimpanzee genus,
Pan. The other species in genus
Pan is
Pan troglodytes, or the
Common Chimpanzee. Both species are chimpanzees, though that term is now frequently used to refer only to the larger of the two species,
Pan troglodytes. To avoid confusion, this article follows the growing trend to use "chimpanzee" to refer to both members of the genus.
The Bonobo was discovered in 1928, by
American anatomist Harold Coolidge, represented by a
skull in the
Tervuren museum in
Belgium that was thought to have belonged to a juvenile chimpanzee, though credit for the discovery went
Encyclopedia
The
Bonobo , until recently usually called the
Pygmy Chimpanzee and less often the
Dwarf or
Gracile Chimpanzee, is one of the two species comprising the chimpanzee genus,
Pan. The other species in genus
Pan is
Pan troglodytes, or the
Common Chimpanzee. Both species are chimpanzees, though that term is now frequently used to refer only to the larger of the two species,
Pan troglodytes. To avoid confusion, this article follows the growing trend to use "chimpanzee" to refer to both members of the genus.
The Bonobo was discovered in 1928, by
American anatomist Harold Coolidge, represented by a
skull in the
Tervuren museum in
Belgium that was thought to have belonged to a juvenile chimpanzee, though credit for the discovery went to the
German Ernst Schwarz, who published the findings in 1929. The species is distinguished by an upright gait, a matriarchal and egalitarian culture, and the prominent role of
sexual activity in their society.
Name
Common Name
One theory about the origin of the name "Bonobo" is that it is a misspelling of the name of the town of Bolobo on the Congo river. A more likely explanation is that it comes from the word for
ancestor in an ancient
Bantu language.
Taxonomy
The scientific name for the Bonobo is
Pan paniscus. As their
DNA is more than 98% identical to that of
Homo sapiens , they are more closely related to the Human than to the Gorilla. Therefore, scientists reclassified the taxonomy of the Bonobo , changing their scientific family name from the family
Pongidae of apes to the family
Hominidae of humans. But there is still controversy. Some scientists maintain that the Bonobo and Common Chimpanzee are so closely related to humans, their genus name should also be classified with the Human genus
Homo:
Homo paniscus,
Homo sylvestris, or
Homo arboreus. An alternative philosophy suggests that the term
Homo sapiens is actually the misnomer, and that humanity should be reclassified as
Pan sapiens. In either case, a namechange of the genus is problematic because it complicates the taxonomy of other species closely related to humans, including
Australopithecus. Moreover, while chimpanzees and
H. sapiens obviously evolved from the same DNA, they are distinct. A mutation in the Human line fused two chromosomal pairs together, so that the Human carries 23 pairs of chromosomes, whereas the Bonobo and Common Chimpanzee has 24.
DNA evidence suggests the Bonobo and Common Chimpanzee species separated from each other just 500,000 years after separating from the last common ancestor with the
Human, and since then, all three have remained apart for about 5 million years. As such, these three species are roughly equidistant. Because no species other than
Homo sapiens has survived from the human line of that branching, both chimpanzee species are the closest living relatives of humans.
The Bonobo remains a slightly closer relative. Bonobo DNA has preserved more in common with Human DNA, whereas that of the Common Chimpanzee has drifted slightly further away.
Physical characteristics
The Bonobo is more gracile than the Common Chimpanzee. Its head is smaller than that of the Common Chimpanzee but has a higher forehead. It has a black face with pink lips, small ears, wide nostrils, and long hair on its head. Females have slightly prominent
breasts in contrast to the flat breasts of other female apes, though not as prominent as those of humans. The Bonobo also have slim upper bodies, narrow shoulders, thin necks, and long legs compared to the Common Chimpanzee. Bonobos walk upright about 25% of the time during ground locomotion. These characteristics, and their posture, give Bonobos a more human-like appearance than that of Common Chimpanzees. Moreover, Bonobos have highly individuated facial features, like humans do, so that one individual looks significantly different from another, adapted for visual recognition in social interaction.
Psychological characteristics
Professor
Frans de Waal, one of the world's leading primatologists, avers that the Bonobo is often capable of altruism, compassion, empathy, kindness, patience and sensitivity.
Recent observations in the wild have confirmed that the males among the Common Chimpanzee troops are extraordinarily hostile to males from outside of the troop. Murder parties are organized to "patrol" for the unfortunate males who might be living nearby in a solitary state. This does not appear to be the behavior of the Bonobo males or females, both of which seem to prefer sexual contact with their group rather than seek violent confrontation with outsiders. The Bonobo lives where the more aggressive Common Chimpanzee does not. Possibly the Bonobo has given a wide berth to their more violent and stronger cousins. Neither swim, and they generally inhabit ranges on opposite sides of the great rivers.
Sexual social behavior
Sexual intercourse plays a major role in Bonobo society, being used as a greeting, a means of conflict resolution and
post-conflict reconciliation, and as
favors traded by the females in exchange for food. Bonobos are the only non-human apes to have been observed engaging in
all of the following sexual activities: face-to-face
genital sex , tongue kissing, and
oral sex. In scientific literature, the female-female sex is often referred to as
GG rubbing or
genital-genital rubbing, while male-male sex is sometimes referred to as
penis fencing.
Sexual activity happens within the immediate family as well as outside it, and often involves adults and children. Bonobos do not form permanent relationships with individual partners. They also do not seem to discriminate in their sexual behavior by gender or age, with the possible exception of sexual intercourse between mothers and their adult sons; some observers believe these pairings are taboo. When Bonobos come upon a new food source or feeding ground, the increased excitement will usually lead to communal sexual activity, presumably decreasing tension and allowing for peaceful feeding.
Bonobo females also engage in female-female genital sex to socially bond with each other, thus forming a female nucleus of bonobo society. While Bonobo society is nonviolent and egalitarian, friendships among females organize their offspring who maintain lifelong loyalty to their mothers. In this way, females often have more influence in group decisions. Adolescent females often leave their troop of birth to join another troop. Sexual bonding with other females establishes the new females as members of the group. This troop migration mixes the bonobo gene pools.
Bonobo reproductive rates are not any higher than that of the Common Chimpanzee. Female Bonobos carry and nurse their young for five years and can give birth every five to six years. Compared to Common Chimpanzees, Bonobo females resume the genital swelling cycle much sooner after giving birth, allowing them to rejoin the sexual activities of their society. Also, Bonobo females who are either sterile or too young to reproduce engage in sexual activity.
Other social behavior
Females are much smaller than males but can be considered to have a higher social status. Aggressive encounters between males and females are rare, and males are tolerant of infants and juveniles. The male's status reflects the status of his mother, and the son-mother bond often stays strong and continues throughout life. While social hierarchies do exist, rank does not play as prominent a role as it does in other primate societies.
Bonobos are active from dawn to dusk and live in a fusion-fission pattern: a tribe of about a hundred will split into small groups during the day while looking for food, and then come back together to sleep. They sleep on trees in nests they construct.
Unlike Common Chimpanzees, who have been known to hunt monkeys, Bonobos are primarily frugivores, although they do eat
insects and have been observed occasionally catching small mammals such as
squirrels.
Closeness to humanity
Bonobos are capable of passing the mirror-recognition test for self-awareness. They communicate through primarily vocal means, although the meanings of their vocalizations are not currently known; however, we do understand their facial expressionsbitat
Around 10,000 Bonobos are found only in the humid forests south of the Congo River, in the Democratic Republic of Congo of central Africa. They are an endangered species, due to both habitat loss and hunting for bushmeat, the latter activity having increased dramatically during the current civil war due to the presence of heavily armed militias even in remote "protected" areas such as Salonga National Park. Today, at most several thousand Bonobos remain. This is part of a more general trend of ape extinction.
Strategies for financing protection from extinction
The genetic closeness of Bonobos, their relative rarity, and their self-awareness compel a moral and scientific imperative to preserve them and protect them from both abuse and extinction. Currently Bonobos may still be hunted to extinction by humans who eat them.
Starting in about 2004, some concerned parties have addressed the crisis plight of these cousins of humanity on several science and ecological websites. Organizations like the WWF, the , and others are trying to focus attention on the extreme risk to the species. Some have suggested that a reserve be established in a less unstable part of Africa, or on an island in a place like Indonesia. Non-invasive medical research could be conducted on relocated free Bonobos with little risk or discomfort.
See also
- List of apes - notable individual apes
References
- Frans de Waal, Frans Lanting, Bonobo: The Forgotten Ape, , May, 1997, hardcover, 210 pages, ISBN 0-520-20535-9; trade paperback, October, 1998, 224 pages, ISBN 0-520-21651-2
- Sue Savage-Rumbaugh and Roger Lewin, Kanzi: The Ape at the Brink of the Human Mind, John Wiley, September, 1994, hardcover, 299 pages, ISBN 0-471-58591-2; trade paperback, reissue, September, 1998, ISBN 0-471-15959-X
- Frans de Waal, Our Inner Ape, , October 6 2005, hardcover, 288 pages, ISBN 1-57322-312-3
External links
- The Bonobo: "Newest" apes are teaching us about ourselves
- ARKive -
- Information about Earth's Endangered Animals.
- Images of Earth's Endangered Animals.
- Video of Earth's Endangered Animals.
