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Despite 'peacenik' reputation, bonobos hunt and eat other primates too
October 14, 2008Unlike the male-dominated societies of their chimpanzee relatives, bonobo society-in which females enjoy a higher social status than males-has a "make-love-not-war" kind of image. While chimpanzee males frequently band together to hunt and kill monkeys, the more peaceful bonobos were believed to restrict what meat they do eat to forest antelopes, squirrels, and rodents.
Not so, according to a study, reported in the October 14th issue of Current Biology, a Cell Press publication, that offers the first direct evidence of wild bonobos hunting and eating the young of other primate species.
"These findings are particularly relevant for the discussion about male dominance and bonding, aggression and hunting-a domain that was thought to separate chimpanzees and bonobos," said Gottfried Hohmann of the Max-Planck-Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology. "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."
Bonobos live only in the lowland forest south of the river Congo, and, along with chimpanzees, they are humans' closest relatives. Bonobos are perhaps best known for their promiscuity: sexual acts both within and between the sexes are a common means of greeting, resolving conflicts, or reconciling after conflicts.
The researchers made the discovery that these free-loving primates also hunt and kill other primates while they were studying a bonobo population living in LuiKotale, Salonga National Park, in the Democratic Republic of Congo. They had been observing the bonobos there for the last five years, which is what made the new observations possible.
Although Hohmann's team did have prior evidence for monkey hunting by bonobos, it came exclusively from indirect studies of fresh fecal samples-one of which contained the digit of a black mangabey. Yet, in the absence of direct behavioral observations, it was not entirely clear whether the bonobos had hunted the mangabey themselves or had taken it from another predator.
The researchers have now seen three instances of successful hunts in which bonobos captured and ate their primate prey. In two other cases, the bonobo hunting attempts failed. The data from LuiKotale showed that both bonobo sexes play active roles in pursuing and hunting monkeys. The involvement of adult females in the hunts (which is not seen in chimps) may reflect social patterns such as alliance formation and cooperation among adult females, they said.
Overall, the discovery challenges the theory that male dominance and aggression must be causally linked to hunting behavior, an idea held by earlier models of the evolution of aggression in human and non-human primates. Future work on the bonobos of LuiKotale may shed light on the social and ecological conditions that encourage their monkey-hunting expeditions, yielding insight into the evolutionary significance and causes of aggression, hunting, and meat eating in bonobos, chimpanzees, and ourselves.
Cell Press
Bonobos live only in the lowland forest south of the river Congo, and, along with chimpanzees, they are humans' closest relatives. Bonobos are perhaps best known for their promiscuity: sexual acts both within and between the sexes are a common means of greeting, resolving conflicts, or reconciling after conflicts.
The researchers made the discovery that these free-loving primates also hunt and kill other primates while they were studying a bonobo population living in LuiKotale, Salonga National Park, in the Democratic Republic of Congo. They had been observing the bonobos there for the last five years, which is what made the new observations possible.
Although Hohmann's team did have prior evidence for monkey hunting by bonobos, it came exclusively from indirect studies of fresh fecal samples-one of which contained the digit of a black mangabey. Yet, in the absence of direct behavioral observations, it was not entirely clear whether the bonobos had hunted the mangabey themselves or had taken it from another predator.
The researchers have now seen three instances of successful hunts in which bonobos captured and ate their primate prey. In two other cases, the bonobo hunting attempts failed. The data from LuiKotale showed that both bonobo sexes play active roles in pursuing and hunting monkeys. The involvement of adult females in the hunts (which is not seen in chimps) may reflect social patterns such as alliance formation and cooperation among adult females, they said.
Overall, the discovery challenges the theory that male dominance and aggression must be causally linked to hunting behavior, an idea held by earlier models of the evolution of aggression in human and non-human primates. Future work on the bonobos of LuiKotale may shed light on the social and ecological conditions that encourage their monkey-hunting expeditions, yielding insight into the evolutionary significance and causes of aggression, hunting, and meat eating in bonobos, chimpanzees, and ourselves.
Cell Press
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Ardi displaces Lucy as oldest hominid skeleton
Nearly 17 years after plucking the fossilized tooth of a new human ancestor from a pebbly desert in Ethiopia, an international team of scientists today announced their reconstruction of a partial skeleton of the hominid, Ardipithecus ramidus, which they say revolutionizes our understanding of the earliest phase of human evolution.
Primate archaeology, proposal of a new research field
The use of tools by hominins - the primate group which includes humans (Homo) and chimpanzees and bonobos (Pan) - has been extensively researched by archaeologists and primatologists, both of who manifest the relevance of tool-use in understanding technology and the origins of human behaviour.
Duke, Harvard researchers to monitor bonobo reintroduction
American researchers who have been studying the rare and threatened bonobo ape will lead monitoring efforts after a group of orphan bonobos are returned to the wild in the Congo for the first time this month.
Great Ape Trust graduate student's paper sheds light on bonobo language
What happens when linguistic tools used to analyze human language are applied to a conversation between a language-competent bonobo and a human?
Extinction threat growing for mankind's closest relatives
Mankind's closest relatives - the world's monkeys, apes and other primates - are disappearing from the face of the Earth, with some literally being eaten into extinction.
Study garners unique mating photos of wild gorillas
Scientists from the Wildlife Conservation Society and Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology have released the first known photographs of gorillas performing face-to-face copulation in the wild. This is the first time that western gorillas have been observed and photographed mating in such a manner.
How our ancestors were like gorillas
Research published in this week's Science journal shows that some of our closest extinct relatives had more in common with gorillas than previously thought.
Gene study shows three distinct groups of chimpanzees
The largest study to date of genetic variation among chimpanzees has found that the traditional, geography-based sorting of chimps into three populations—western, central and eastern—is underpinned by significant genetic differences, two to three times greater than the variation between the most different human populations.
UVA studies potential target for skin cancer treatment
When normal skin cells become a melanoma tumor, they sometimes turn on genes not usually found in the skin.
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