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This Behind the Scenes article was bring home the bacon to LiveScience in partnership with the National Science Foundation .
Primatologist Brian Hare wish well more hoi polloi could discover what pygmy chimpanzee can teach us about human nature . " I really think they are the smartest ape in the world , " he said . " We have a lot to learn from them . "
Primatologists Brain Hare studies bonobos. Here, a bonobo named Mimi, the alpha female, has a little down time.
Bonobos are genetically close to mankind , yet most the great unwashed do it very piffling about them . Through his on-going enquiry , Harehopes to change that .
" pygmy chimpanzee really are our less familiar cousin that we have keep at arm ’s length , " Hare said . " The general world is so unfamiliar with them that even many reporters who have interviewed me have spell in their stories that they are bonobo ' monkeys , ' not take in they are ape — like us . So it is enceinte when the bonobos can have some attending . "
Bonobos are often confuse with chimpanzees , but actually are quite unlike . In expression , bonobos are smaller , with black faces , pink lips and long contraband hair , neatly break in the center . Chimps have low , trashy voices , while pygmy chimpanzee ' voices are high up - monger .
More significantly , chimps make war , Male take charge , and chimps can be quite violent , even to the extent of killing one another . Bonobos , on the other hand , are regularise by female , do n’t ever kill one another , and usesexual activityto wield a peaceable corporate temperament .
Hare , assistant professor of evolutionary anthropology at Duke University , spend several months of the year in the Democratic Republic of Congo , where he studies bonobos . He focalise on their behavior , specifically on how they work out problem and interact with other bonobos .
Recently , he and his colleagues find that bonobos are natural sharers . Their work , published in a late Current Biology and funded by the National Science Foundation and the European Research Council , line howbonobos enjoy sharingfood with other bonobos , and never outgrow their willingness to do so — unlike chimpanzees , who become more selfish when they hit maturity .
In one experiment , the animals in an enclosing were countenance to keep an entire food pile for themselves or open a one - direction door that would leave another bonobo to enter the room to eat with them . Invariably , they opened the door .
" What we found is that the bonobos voluntarily chose to reach the doorway for their neighbour so they could share the food , " Hare say . Another set of experiments , at the Tchimpounga Sanctuary in Congo , compared chimpanzees to bonobos . The youthful chimps were quite similar to young bonobos in their willingness to share food , but researchers discovered that the chimps became less uncoerced to share as they arise older . Bonobos , on the other hand , continued to share like juvenile person even after hit adulthood , they said .
" It seems like some of these adult differences might really derive from developmental differences , " said Victoria Wobber , a Harvard graduate scholarly person who collaborates with Hare . " organic evolution has been act on the development of their cognition . "
Hare and his mentor , Richard Wrangham at Harvard , believe bonobos act this way because they always have enjoyed an abundant environs . They typically experience south of the Congo River , where there is plenty of food , and where they do n’t have to compete with gorillas — as chimpanzee must — or with each other .
However , bonobos have human enemies , specifically hunters employ in the illegal external business deal in bush meat . environmentalist are form to deliver bonobos who have been orphan by these activities , sheltering them in sanctuaries , where they are protected for as long as they subsist .
" Unfortunately , bonobos are not immune to the bullets of hunters and often fall prey , " Hare allege . " Their meat is sold in bounteous cities in Congo , but bush meat traders attempt to sell baby that survive their mothers ' deaths as pets . Here in Congo , it is illegal to buy and sell bonobos , so when an infant is reveal in the market , or in the will power of a wildlife seller , they are confiscated . "
The animals live in a sanctuary called Lola ya Bonobo , located in Les Petites Chutes de la Lukaya , just out of doors of Kinshasa . " Lola ya Bonobo " think " paradise for Pan paniscus " in Lingala , the master spoken communication of Kinshasa .
Lola ya Bonobo cares for more than 60 Pan paniscus orphans . The quickness is run by a staff of conservation and welfare experts who " do an amazing job apace rehabilitating the baby bonobos , so that they apace recover from the hurt of their seizure , and exist a very normal and glad lifetime with other pygmy chimpanzee here at the sanctuary , " Hare said , adding : " They have a huge 75 Akko timber they spiel in each day . "
Many of these deliver bonobos serve as Hare ’s research subjects . At the sanctuary , Hare and his fellow research worker use observational technique to test the bonobos , and observe their behavior . " basically , we project sport games that the bonobos can play and delight , but at the same fourth dimension can reveal how they lick problem , " he aver . " The study published in Current Biology is a great instance of how experiment are important to read the psychological science of animate being . "
After the games , " we let the pygmy chimpanzee back out into their gargantuan outdoor enclosures so they can play with all the other bonobos in the primary tropic forest they last in during the day , " Hare added . " fundamentally , they stick around in spite of appearance for an hour or so , and get a lot of yummy food , and they go back alfresco . "
have and raised in Atlanta , Hare , 34 , was always interested in animals and biology , so a career studying beast behavior , " add up kind of naturally , " he enounce . He run low to Emory University , where , among other thing , he consider chimpanzees .
" However , I ’d always wanted to meditate bonobos and compare them to chimpanzees , " he say . " I did my Ph.D. run at Harvard with Richard Wrangham , who encouraged me to start working in African sanctuaries , like Lola ya Bonobo . This is exciting because our enquiry dollar go to organizations in ape home ground rural area ferment on benefit and conservation efforts . "
Hare ’s wife , Vanessa Woods , is a research scientist in Biological Anthropology and Anatomy at Duke and has written a Koran about the bonobos , Congo , and their research on bonobos , entitled Bonobo Handshake , schedule to be released in June by Gotham / Penguin . " I do think it could be a groovy reference if people want to learn more about bonobos , " Hare said . " She detail a mickle of the story about our research — mayhap too much particular in some places — a good place to look for embarrassing stories . "
Lola ya Bonobo is the largest pygmy chimpanzee confined quickness in the world that plunk for inquiry , Hare said , which enables scientist " to do a act of comparisons between chimpanzees and bonobos that would otherwise be impossible , " he add .
Hare is especially pleased that one of his research colleagues , Suzy Kwetuenda , based at Lola ya Bonobo , is the first Congolese pupil ever to study the psychological science of bonobos .
“ " Hopefully , she will be the first of many students read bonobos ' behaviour and psychology , " added Hare , " and that will get mediocre Congolese citizens excite about saving the pygmy chimpanzee , which is only regain in their country . "
