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Bonobos
Topic Started: May 28 2007, 07:20 AM (29 Views)
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Ladies rule!

In bonobo society, the females take charge and keep lifelong bonds with their sons. When a daughter is old enough, she must leave the troop and find another one to join. She will breed with all the males in the new group, and she gains permanent membership when she gives birth.

Adult females form strong bonds with each other. The female-led troops tend to be relatively peaceful, and bonobos seem to be sensitive to each other’s needs.

Baby bonobos

Infants are born almost helpless and must be carried everywhere by their mothers for the first two years. A youngster stays close to its mother for several years while it grows and learns how to be a part of bonobo society. Bonobos use touch to give reassurance and comfort to each other.

They form close relationships with other members of the troop, even after they are grown. Although bonobos can reach their sexual maturity at 6 to 8 years of age, the females don’t usually have their first baby until they are about 13 years old.

Who’s the smartest of them all?

Some scientists believe that bonobos are the most intelligent of the primates (other than humans, of course!). Maybe that’s because, genetically, bonobos are considered our closest living relatives. They share many of our human behaviors, such as teaching their young social skills, using tools to get food, and working together for the good of the entire troop.

Scientists have taught a few bonobos, housed in labs, how to communicate with humans by using symbols that represent words on a board. They can understand spoken words and reply to questions or ask for things by pointing to symbols. Bonobos even laugh when they are tickling each other or playing together, and they do other things that may remind you of some people you know!

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, humans do understand their facial expressions and some of their natural hand gestures, such as their invitation to play.

Two Bonobos at the Great Ape Trust, Kanzi and Panbanisha, have been taught a vocabulary of about 400 words which they can type using a special keyboard of lexigrams (geometric symbols), and can respond to spoken sentences. Some, such as bioethicist Peter Singer, argue that these results qualify them for the "rights to survival and life", rights that humans theoretically accord to all persons.

Bonobos in trouble

Sadly, there are few bonobos left in the wild and so they are considered the most endangered of the great apes. Humans continue to move into bonobo habitat, hunting these amazing apes for food and selling their babies into the pet trade. Commercial logging operations create new roads to harvest timber, giving people easier access to hunt or capture many rain forest species.

There are also few bonobos in zoos. The San Diego Zoo and the Wild Animal Park have successfully bred and maintained these intelligent and curious apes since 1960 and we continue to fund conservation efforts for them in central Africa.

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