Pan paniscus look like meek versions of chimpanzees . They ’re much less strong-growing than chimp , their features are softer and smaller than their cousins , and they excellently have gender for pleasure . Basically bonobos are domesticated … except humans had nothing to do with it .
The differences between chimps and bonobo are a good lucifer for standardized pairings of wild and domesticated animals , such as wolves and dogs . But there ’s no reasonableness to think that ancient humans once went around trying to domesticize chimpanzees , so whatever befall here must have been without any outside intervention . And grant to Duke researcher Brian Hare , bonobos really are an example of a self - domesticated copycat , a species where aggressive Male were weeded out by instinctive excerpt so that only the meeker , more secure - natured bonobos remained .
AsHare explains to Scientific American , the variance between Pan troglodytes and bonobos in all probability began around one to two million year ago , when the newly formed Congo river separate two population of their chimp - similar common ancestor . The northerly ape found themselves share territory with gorillas , who had a huge advantage in acquire food . The smaller apes had to fight savagely for the remaining intellectual nourishment , with male in all probability come to dominate females both in terms of sex and resources . The result ? chimpanzee .
But , according to Hare , the Congo River isolated the southern aper from Gorilla gorilla , which meant food remained plentiful . As Scientific American explains , this was great news for females :
With more solid food to go around , female could conglomerate in larger groups , form tight societal shackle , and well resist the advances of males . In this land of plenty , the least aggressive male person , who opted for alliances rather than bestial force , were most potential to mate . in the south of the river , the nicer ape expand . As a result , Hare thinks that they started age more easy . Many domesticated creature develop to become less aggressive by retard the pace of development , so adult keep on juvenile traits .
Assuming it ’s true , this means that tameness is n’t all about world . alternatively , anywhere a species come across an environment where aggressiveness is n’t valued , they will become tamed and , in the end , more childlike . The problem , however , is that we ca n’t be sure that Hare ’s story of bonobo evolution is correct , because we do n’t have any fossils of their coarse ancestor with chimpanzee . In the absence seizure of clear grounds to support the possibility bonobos may have to stay a singularly eldritch species , albeit a very pleasant one .
Animal BehaviourviaScientific American . picture by bobosh_t onFlickr .
ChimpanzeedomesticationEvolutionMonkey newsPrimateScience
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