Bonobo
Encyclopedia
The bonobo Pan paniscus, previously called the pygmy chimpanzee and less often, the dwarf or gracile chimpanzee, is a great ape and one of the two species
making up the genus
Pan
. The other species in genus Pan is Pan troglodytes, or the common chimpanzee
. Although the name "chimpanzee" is sometimes used to refer to both species together, it is usually understood as referring to the common chimpanzee, while Pan paniscus is usually referred to as the bonobo.
The lifespan of a bonobo in captivity is about 40 years. The lifespan in the wild is unknown.
Bonobos are far less aggressive than chimpanzees and other apes.
The bonobo is endangered and is found in the wild only in the Democratic Republic of the Congo
. Along with the common chimpanzee, the bonobo is the closest extant relative to humans. Because the two species are not proficient swimmers, it is possible that the formation of the Congo River
1.5–2 million years ago led to the speciation
of the bonobo. They live south of the river, and thereby were separated from the ancestors of the common chimpanzee, which live north of the river.
German
anatomist Ernst Schwarz
is credited with having discovered the bonobo in 1928, based on his analysis of a skull
in the Tervuren
museum in Belgium
that previously had been thought to have belonged to a juvenile chimpanzee. Schwarz published his findings in 1929. In 1933, American
anatomist Harold Coolidge
offered a more detailed description of the bonobo, and elevated it to species status. The American psychologist and primatologist Robert Yerkes
was also one of the first scientists to notice major differences between bonobos and chimpanzees. These were first discussed in detail in a study by Eduard Paul Tratz
and Heinz Heck
published in the early 1950s.
The species is distinguished by relatively long legs, pink lips, dark face and tail-tuft through adulthood, and parted long hair on its head.
Bonobos are perceived to be matriarchal: females tend to collectively dominate males by forming alliances; females use their sexuality to control males; a male's rank in the social hierarchy is determined by his mother's rank. However, there are also claims of a special role for the alpha male in group movement. The limited research on Bonobos in the wild was also taken to indicate that these matriarchal behaviors may be exaggerated by captivity, as well as by food provisioning by researchers in the field. This view has recently been challenged, however, by Duke University's Vanessa Woods; Woods noted in a radio interview that she had observed bonobos in a spacious forested sanctuary in the DRC exhibiting the same sort of hypersexuality under these more naturalistic conditions; and, while she acknowledges a hierarchy among males, including an alpha male, these males are less dominant than the dominant female.
on the Congo River
, which was associated with the collection of chimps in the 1920s. The term has also been reported as being a word for "ancestor" in an extinct Bantu language
.
While no official publication on the bonobo genome is publicly available, an initial analysis by the National Human Genome Research Institute
confirmed that the bonobo genome diverges about 0.4 % from the chimpanzee genome. In addition, Svante Pääbo
's group at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology is currently sequencing the genome of a female bonobo from the Leipzig zoo. Initial genetic studies characterised the DNA
of chimpanzees (common chimpanzee and bonobo, collectively) as being as much as 98% (99.4 in one study) identical to that of Homo sapiens. Later studies showed that chimpanzees are more closely related to humans than to gorillas. The most recent genetic analyses (published in 2006) of chimpanzee and human genetic similarity come from whole genome
comparisons and have shown that the differences between the two species are more complex, both in extent and character, than the historical 98% figure suggests.
In the seminal Nature
paper reporting on initial genome comparisons, researchers identified thirty-five million single-nucleotide changes
, five million insertion or deletion events, and a number of chromosomal rearrangements
which constituted the genetic differences between chimpanzees and humans, covering 98% of the same genes. While many of these analyses have been performed on the common chimpanzee rather than the bonobo, the differences between the two chimpanzee species are unlikely to be substantial enough to affect the Pan-Homo comparative data significantly.
There still is controversy, however. Scientists such as Jared Diamond
in The Third Chimpanzee
, and Morris Goodman
of Wayne State University
in Detroit
argue that the bonobo and common chimpanzee are so closely related to humans that their genus
name also should be classified with the human genus Homo: Homo paniscus, Homo sylvestris, or Homo arboreus. An alternative philosophy suggests that the term Homo sapiens is the misnomer
rather, and that humans should be reclassified as Pan sapiens, though this would violate the Rule of Priority as Homo was named before Pan (1758 for the former, 1816 for the latter). In either case, a name change of the genus would have implications on the taxonomy
of other species closely related to humans, including Australopithecus
. The current line between Homo and non-Homo species is drawn about 2 million years ago, and chimpanzee and human ancestry converges only about 7 million years ago, nearly three times earlier.
Recent DNA evidence suggests the bonobo and common chimpanzee species effectively separated from each other less than one million years ago. The chimpanzee line split from the last common ancestor
shared with human
s approximately six to seven million years ago. Because no species other than Homo sapiens has survived from the human line of that branching, both Pan species are the closest living relatives of humans and cladistically
are equally close to humans.
. This would indicate that both humans and members of the Pan clade
were present in the East African Rift Valley
during the Middle Pleistocene
. According to A. Zihlman Bonobo body proportions closely resemble those of Australopithecus. Richard Dawkins
, in his book The Ancestor's Tale
, proposes that chimpanzees and bonobos are descended from Australopithecus Gracile type species (see Homininae
); in other words, the ancestors of chimpanzees and bonobos would be some of the Australopithecus afarensis.
than the common chimpanzee, and females are somewhat smaller than males. Its head is smaller than that of the common chimpanzee with less prominent brow ridges above the eyes. It has a black face with pink lips, small ears, wide nostrils, and long hair on its head that forms a part. Females have slightly more prominent breasts, in contrast to the flat breasts of other female apes, although not so prominent as those of humans. The bonobo also has a slim upper body, narrow shoulders, thin neck, and long legs when compared to the common chimpanzee.
Bonobos are both terrestrial and arboreal. Most ground locomotion is characterized by quadrupedal knuckle walking. Bipedal walking
has been recorded as less than 1% of terrestrial locomotion in the wild, a figure that decreased with habituation
, while in captivity there is a wide variation. Bipedal walking in captivity, as a percentage of bipedal plus quadrupedal locomotion bouts, has been observed from 3.9% for spontaneous bouts to nearly 19% when abundant food is provided. These physical characteristics and its posture give the bonobo an appearance more closely resembling that of humans than that of the common chimpanzee (see: bipedal Bonobos). The bonobo also has highly individuated facial features, as humans do, so that one individual may look significantly different from another, a characteristic adapted for visual facial recognition in social interaction.
, taking into account such features as the proportionately long torso length of the bonobo. This conclusion has been challenged by other researchers.
is mainly frugivorous, but supplements its diet with leaves and meat from small vertebrates such as flying squirrel
s and duiker
s, and invertebrates. In some instances, bonobos have been shown to consume lower-order primates. Some claim that bonobos have also been known to practice cannibalism in captivity, a claim disputed by others. However there is at least one confirmed report of cannibalism in the wild as reported by researchers Gottfried Hohmann and Andrew Fowler.
states that bonobos are capable of altruism
, compassion
, empathy
, kindness, patience, and sensitivity
. How peaceful bonobos are has been disputed by some, however.
The popular image of the bonobo as a peaceful ape does not always apply to captive populations. Accounts exist of bonobos confined in zoo
s mutilating one another and engaging in bullying. These incidents may be due to the practice in zoos of separating mothers and sons, which is contrary to their social organization in the wild. Bonobo society is dominated by females, and severing the lifelong alliance between mothers and their male offspring may make them vulnerable to female aggression. De Waal has warned of the danger of romanticizing bonobos: "All animals are competitive by nature and cooperative only under specific circumstances" as well as writing that "when first writing about their behavior, I spoke of 'sex for peace' precisely because bonobos had plenty of conflicts. There would obviously be no need for peacemaking if they lived in perfect harmony." There is no eyewitness account of lethal aggression among bonobos, neither in captivity nor in the wild.
Hohmann and Surbeck published in 2008 that bonobos sometimes do hunt monkey species. Five incidents were observed in a group of bonobos in Salonga National Park
, which seemed to reflect deliberate cooperative hunting. On three occasions, the hunt was successful and infant monkeys were captured. This behavior falls under feeding, however, not aggression.
Most studies indicate that females have a higher social status in bonobo society. Aggressive encounters between males and females are rare, and males are tolerant of infants and juveniles. A male's status is derived from the status of his mother. The mother-son bond often stays strong and continues throughout life. While social hierarchies do exist, rank plays a less prominent role than in other primate societies.
Bonobo party size
tends to vary because the groups exhibit a fission-fusion pattern
. A community of approximately 100 will split into small groups during the day while looking for food, and then comes back together to sleep. They sleep in trees in nests that they construct.
plays a major role in bonobo society observed in captivity, being used as what some scientists perceive as a greeting
, a means of forming social bonds, a means of conflict resolution
, and post-conflict reconciliation. Bonobos are the only non-human animal to have been observed engaging in all of the following sexual activities: face-to-face genital sex (although a pair of Western Gorillas has been photographed performing face-to-face genital sex), tongue kissing, and oral sex
. In scientific literature, the female-female behavior of touching genitals together is often referred to as GG rubbing or genital-genital rubbing, or, as referred to commonly by British
primate researchers, "scissoring." The sexual activity happens within the immediate community and sometimes outside of it. Bonobos do not form permanent monogamous sexual relationships
with individual partners. They also do not seem to discriminate in their sexual behavior by sex or age, with the possible exception of abstaining from sexual intercourse between mothers and their adult sons. 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 encouraging peaceful feeding.
Bonobo males occasionally engage in various forms of male-male genital behavior. In one form, two males hang from a tree limb face-to-face while "penis fencing". This also may occur when two males rub their penises together while in face-to-face position. Another form of genital interaction ("rump rubbing") occurs to express reconciliation between two males after a conflict, when they stand back-to-back and rub their scrotal sacs together. Takayoshi Kano observed similar practices among bonobos in the natural habitat.
Bonobo females also engage in female-female genital behavior, possibly to bond socially with each other, thus forming a female nucleus of bonobo society. The bonding among females enables them to dominate bonobo society. Although male bonobos are individually stronger, they cannot stand alone against a united group of females. Adolescent females often leave their native community to join another community. Sexual bonding with other females establishes these new females as members of the group. This migration mixes the bonobo gene pool
s, providing genetic diversity
.
Bonobo reproductive rates are no higher than those 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, enabling them to rejoin the sexual activities of their society. Also, bonobo females who are sterile or too young to reproduce still engage in sexual activity.
, Kanzi
and Panbanisha
, have been taught how to communicate using a keyboard labeled with lexigrams (geometric symbols) and they can respond to spoken sentences. Kanzi's vocabulary consists of more than 500 English words and he has comprehension of around 3,000 spoken English words. Kanzi has also been known for learning from observation of people trying to teach his mother. His mother was not learning some things and Kanzi started doing the tasks that his mother was taught just by watching. Some, such as philosopher and bioethicist
Peter Singer
, argue that these results qualify them for "rights to survival and life
"–rights
that humans theoretically accord to all person
s.
There are instances in which non-human primates have been reported to have expressed joy. One study analyzed and recorded sounds made by human babies and Bonobos when they were tickled. It found although the Bonobo's laugh was a higher frequency, the laugh followed a similar spectrographic pattern to human babies.
and north of the Kasai River
(a tributary of the Congo), in the humid forests of the Democratic Republic of Congo
of central Africa
.
classifies bonobos as an endangered species
with conservative population estimates ranging from 29,500 to 50,000 individuals. Major threats to bonobo populations include habitat
loss and hunting for bushmeat
, the latter activity having increased dramatically during the first
and second Congo wars
in the Democratic Republic of Congo due to the presence of heavily armed militias even in remote "protected" areas such as Salonga National Park
. This is part of a more general trend of ape extinction
.
As the bonobo's habitat is shared with people, the ultimate success of conservation efforts will rely on local and community involvement. The issue of parks versus people is salient in the Cuvette Centrale
, the bonobo's range. There is strong local and broad-based Congolese resistance to establishing national parks, as indigenous communities often have been driven from their forest homes by the establishment of parks. In Salonga National Park
, the only national park in the bonobo habitat, there is no local involvement, and recent surveys indicate that the bonobo, the African Forest Elephant
, and other species have been severely devastated by poachers
and the thriving bushmeat
trade. In contrast to this, there are areas where the bonobo and biodiversity still thrive without any established parks, due to the indigenous beliefs and taboos against killing bonobos.
The port town of Basankusu
is situated on the Lulonga River
, at the confluence of the Lopori
and Maringa
Rivers, in the north of the country, making it well placed to receive and transport local goods to the cities of Mbandaka
and Kinshasa
. With Basankusu
being the last port of substance before the wilderness of the Lopori Basin and the Lomako River – the bonobo heartland, conservation efforts for the bonobo, use the town as a base.
In 1995, concern over declining numbers of Bonobos in the wild led the Zoological Society of Milwaukee in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, with contributions from Bonobo scientists around the world, to publish the Action Plan for Pan paniscus: A Report on Free Ranging Populations and Proposals for their Preservation. The Action Plan compiles population data on Bonobos from twenty years of research conducted at various sites throughout the Bonobo's range. The plan identifies priority actions for Bonobo conservation and serves as a reference for developing conservation programs for researchers, government officials, and donor agencies.
Acting on Action Plan recommendations, the ZSM developed the Bonobo and Congo Biodiversity Initiative (BCBI). This program includes habitat and rain-forest preservation, training for Congolese nationals and conservation institutions, wildlife population assessment and monitoring, and education. The Zoological Society has conducted regional surveys within the range of the bonobo in conjunction with training Congolese researchers in survey methodology and biodiversity monitoring. The Zoological Society’s initial goal was to survey Salonga National Park to determine the conservation status of the bonobo within the park and to provide financial and technical assistance to strengthen park protection. As the project has developed, the Zoological Society has become more involved in helping the Congolese living in bonobo habitat. The Zoological Society has built schools, hired teachers, provided some medicines, and, , started an agriculture project to help the Congolese learn to grow crops and depend less on hunting wild animals.
During the wars in the 1990s, researchers and international non-governmental organization
s (NGOs) were driven out of the Bonobo habitat. In 2002, the Bonobo Conservation Initiative
initiated the Bonobo Peace Forest Project in cooperation with national institutions, local NGOs, and local communities. The Peace Forest Project works with local communities to establish a linked constellation of community-based reserves, managed by local and indigenous people. Although there has been only limited support from international organizations, this model, implemented mainly through DRC organizations and local communities, has helped bring about agreements to protect over 5000 square miles (12,949.9 km²) of the bonobo habitat. According to Dr. Amy Parish, the Bonobo Peace Forest "is going to be a model for conservation in the 21st century."
This initiative has been gaining momentum and greater international recognition and it recently has gained greater support through Conservation International
, the Global Conservation Fund, United States Fish and Wildlife Service
's Great Ape Conservation Fund, and the United Nations' Great Apes Survival Project
.
With grants from the United Nations, USAID, the U.S. Embassy, the World Wildlife Fund, and many other groups and individuals, the Zoological Society also has been working to:
Starting in 2003, the U.S. government allocated $54 million to the Congo Basin Forest Partnership. This significant investment has triggered the involvement of international NGOs to establish bases in the region and work to develop bonobo conservation programs. This initiative should improve the likelihood of Bonobo survival, but its success still may depend upon building greater involvement and capability in local and indigenous communities.
The Congo is setting aside more than 11000 square miles (28,489.9 km²) of rain forest to help protect the endangered Bonobo, in this central African country. U.S. agencies, conservation groups, and the Congolese government have come together to set aside 11803 square miles (30,569.6 km²) of tropical rain forest, the U.S.-based Bonobo Conservation Initiative. The area amounts to just over 1% of the vast Congo – but that means a park larger than the state of Massachusetts.
The bonobo population is believed to have declined sharply in the last thirty years, though surveys have been hard to carry out in war-ravaged central Congo. Estimates range from 60,000 to fewer than 50,000 living, according to the World Wildlife Fund.
The Sankuru reserve also contains Okapi
, closely related to the Giraffe
, that also is native to Congo, elephants, and at least ten other primate species.
In addition, concerned parties have addressed the crisis on several science and ecological websites. Organizations such as the World Wide Fund for Nature
, the African Wildlife Foundation
, and others are trying to focus attention on the extreme risk to the species. Some have suggested that a reserve be established in a more stable part of Africa, or on an island in a place such as Indonesia. Awareness is ever increasing and even non-scientific or ecological sites have created various groups to collect donations to help with the conservation of this species.
Species
In biology, a species is one of the basic units of biological classification and a taxonomic rank. A species is often defined as a group of organisms capable of interbreeding and producing fertile offspring. While in many cases this definition is adequate, more precise or differing measures are...
making up the genus
Genus
In biology, a genus is a low-level taxonomic rank used in the biological classification of living and fossil organisms, which is an example of definition by genus and differentia...
Pan
Chimpanzee
Chimpanzee, sometimes colloquially chimp, is the common name for the two extant species of ape in the genus Pan. The Congo River forms the boundary between the native habitat of the two species:...
. The other species in genus Pan is Pan troglodytes, or the common chimpanzee
Common Chimpanzee
The common chimpanzee , also known as the robust chimpanzee, is a great ape. Colloquially, the common chimpanzee is often called the chimpanzee , though technically this term refers to both species in the genus Pan: the common chimpanzee and the closely related bonobo, formerly called the pygmy...
. Although the name "chimpanzee" is sometimes used to refer to both species together, it is usually understood as referring to the common chimpanzee, while Pan paniscus is usually referred to as the bonobo.
The lifespan of a bonobo in captivity is about 40 years. The lifespan in the wild is unknown.
Bonobos are far less aggressive than chimpanzees and other apes.
The bonobo is endangered and is found in the wild only in the Democratic Republic of the Congo
Democratic Republic of the Congo
The Democratic Republic of the Congo is a state located in Central Africa. It is the second largest country in Africa by area and the eleventh largest in the world...
. Along with the common chimpanzee, the bonobo is the closest extant relative to humans. Because the two species are not proficient swimmers, it is possible that the formation of the Congo River
Congo River
The Congo River is a river in Africa, and is the deepest river in the world, with measured depths in excess of . It is the second largest river in the world by volume of water discharged, though it has only one-fifth the volume of the world's largest river, the Amazon...
1.5–2 million years ago led to the speciation
Speciation
Speciation is the evolutionary process by which new biological species arise. The biologist Orator F. Cook seems to have been the first to coin the term 'speciation' for the splitting of lineages or 'cladogenesis,' as opposed to 'anagenesis' or 'phyletic evolution' occurring within lineages...
of the bonobo. They live south of the river, and thereby were separated from the ancestors of the common chimpanzee, which live north of the river.
German
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
anatomist Ernst Schwarz
Ernst Schwarz
Ernst Schwarz was a German zoologist.Schwarz was born in Frankfurt and studied zoology in Munich. He worked at the Museum of Natural History in Frankfurt and the Zoological Museum in Berlin. In 1929 he became professor of Zoology at the University of Greifswald. He worked at the Natural History...
is credited with having discovered the bonobo in 1928, based on his analysis of a skull
Skull
The skull is a bony structure in the head of many animals that supports the structures of the face and forms a cavity for the brain.The skull is composed of two parts: the cranium and the mandible. A skull without a mandible is only a cranium. Animals that have skulls are called craniates...
in the Tervuren
Tervuren
Tervuren is a municipality in the province of Flemish Brabant, in Flanders, one of the three regions of Belgium. The municipality comprises the villages of Duisburg, Tervuren, Vossem and Moorsel. On January 1, 2006, Tervuren had a total population of 20,636...
museum in Belgium
Belgium
Belgium , officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a federal state in Western Europe. It is a founding member of the European Union and hosts the EU's headquarters, and those of several other major international organisations such as NATO.Belgium is also a member of, or affiliated to, many...
that previously had been thought to have belonged to a juvenile chimpanzee. Schwarz published his findings in 1929. In 1933, American
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
anatomist Harold Coolidge
Harold Jefferson Coolidge, Jr.
Harold Jefferson Coolidge, Jr. was an American zoologist and a founding director of the International Union for the Conservation of Nature as well as of the World Wildlife Fund ....
offered a more detailed description of the bonobo, and elevated it to species status. The American psychologist and primatologist Robert Yerkes
Robert Yerkes
Robert Mearns Yerkes was an American psychologist, ethologist, and primatologist best known for his work in intelligence testing and in the field of comparative psychology....
was also one of the first scientists to notice major differences between bonobos and chimpanzees. These were first discussed in detail in a study by Eduard Paul Tratz
Eduard Paul Tratz
Eduard Paul Tratz was an Austrian zoologist.-Ahnenerbe:Tratz was the founder of Salzburg's Haus der Natur, one of the leading museums of natural history in Austria, in 1924...
and Heinz Heck
Heinz Heck
Heinz Heck was a German biologist and director of zoo in Munich . Heck worked on the breeding back projects of the Heck Horse, which strove to recreate the Tarpan , and the Heck Cattle, which was to recreate the aurochs, both of which...
published in the early 1950s.
The species is distinguished by relatively long legs, pink lips, dark face and tail-tuft through adulthood, and parted long hair on its head.
Bonobos are perceived to be matriarchal: females tend to collectively dominate males by forming alliances; females use their sexuality to control males; a male's rank in the social hierarchy is determined by his mother's rank. However, there are also claims of a special role for the alpha male in group movement. The limited research on Bonobos in the wild was also taken to indicate that these matriarchal behaviors may be exaggerated by captivity, as well as by food provisioning by researchers in the field. This view has recently been challenged, however, by Duke University's Vanessa Woods; Woods noted in a radio interview that she had observed bonobos in a spacious forested sanctuary in the DRC exhibiting the same sort of hypersexuality under these more naturalistic conditions; and, while she acknowledges a hierarchy among males, including an alpha male, these males are less dominant than the dominant female.
Common name
The name bonobo first appeared in 1954, when Edward Tratz and Heinz Heck proposed it as a new and separate generic term for pygmy chimpanzees. It is thought that the name is a misspelling on a shipping crate from the town of BoloboBolobo
Bolobo is a town on the Congo River in Kwango District of Bandundu Province in the western part of the Democratic Republic of the Congo ....
on the Congo River
Congo River
The Congo River is a river in Africa, and is the deepest river in the world, with measured depths in excess of . It is the second largest river in the world by volume of water discharged, though it has only one-fifth the volume of the world's largest river, the Amazon...
, which was associated with the collection of chimps in the 1920s. The term has also been reported as being a word for "ancestor" in an extinct Bantu language
Bantu languages
The Bantu languages constitute a traditional sub-branch of the Niger–Congo languages. There are about 250 Bantu languages by the criterion of mutual intelligibility, though the distinction between language and dialect is often unclear, and Ethnologue counts 535 languages...
.
Taxonomy
The scientific name for the bonobo is Pan paniscus.While no official publication on the bonobo genome is publicly available, an initial analysis by the National Human Genome Research Institute
National Human Genome Research Institute
The National Human Genome Research Institute is a division of the National Institutes of Health, located in Bethesda, Maryland.NHGRI began as the National Center for Human Genome Research , which was established in 1989 to carry out the role of the NIH in the International Human Genome Project...
confirmed that the bonobo genome diverges about 0.4 % from the chimpanzee genome. In addition, Svante Pääbo
Svante Pääbo
Svante Pääbo is a Swedish biologist specializing in evolutionary genetics. He was born in 1955 in Stockholm to Sune Bergström, who shared the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine with Bengt I. Samuelsson and John R. Vane in 1982, and his mother, Estonian Karin Pääbo.He earned his PhD from Uppsala...
's group at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology is currently sequencing the genome of a female bonobo from the Leipzig zoo. Initial genetic studies characterised the DNA
DNA
Deoxyribonucleic acid is a nucleic acid that contains the genetic instructions used in the development and functioning of all known living organisms . The DNA segments that carry this genetic information are called genes, but other DNA sequences have structural purposes, or are involved in...
of chimpanzees (common chimpanzee and bonobo, collectively) as being as much as 98% (99.4 in one study) identical to that of Homo sapiens. Later studies showed that chimpanzees are more closely related to humans than to gorillas. The most recent genetic analyses (published in 2006) of chimpanzee and human genetic similarity come from whole genome
Genome
In modern molecular biology and genetics, the genome is the entirety of an organism's hereditary information. It is encoded either in DNA or, for many types of virus, in RNA. The genome includes both the genes and the non-coding sequences of the DNA/RNA....
comparisons and have shown that the differences between the two species are more complex, both in extent and character, than the historical 98% figure suggests.
In the seminal Nature
Nature (journal)
Nature, first published on 4 November 1869, is ranked the world's most cited interdisciplinary scientific journal by the Science Edition of the 2010 Journal Citation Reports...
paper reporting on initial genome comparisons, researchers identified thirty-five million single-nucleotide changes
Single nucleotide polymorphism
A single-nucleotide polymorphism is a DNA sequence variation occurring when a single nucleotide — A, T, C or G — in the genome differs between members of a biological species or paired chromosomes in an individual...
, five million insertion or deletion events, and a number of chromosomal rearrangements
Chromosomal translocation
In genetics, a chromosome translocation is a chromosome abnormality caused by rearrangement of parts between nonhomologous chromosomes. A gene fusion may be created when the translocation joins two otherwise separated genes, the occurrence of which is common in cancer. It is detected on...
which constituted the genetic differences between chimpanzees and humans, covering 98% of the same genes. While many of these analyses have been performed on the common chimpanzee rather than the bonobo, the differences between the two chimpanzee species are unlikely to be substantial enough to affect the Pan-Homo comparative data significantly.
There still is controversy, however. Scientists such as Jared Diamond
Jared Diamond
Jared Mason Diamond is an American scientist and author whose work draws from a variety of fields. He is currently Professor of Geography and Physiology at UCLA...
in The Third Chimpanzee
The Third Chimpanzee
The Third Chimpanzee: The Evolution and Future of the Human Animal is a wide-ranging book by Jared Diamond, professor of geography and physiology at the University of California, Los Angeles , which applies insights from biology, anthropology, and linguistics to questions such as why one species...
, and Morris Goodman
Morris Goodman
Morris Goodman was an American scientist known for his work in molecular evolution and molecular systematics...
of Wayne State University
Wayne State University
Wayne State University is a public research university located in Detroit, Michigan, United States, in the city's Midtown Cultural Center Historic District. Founded in 1868, WSU consists of 13 schools and colleges offering more than 400 major subject areas to over 32,000 graduate and...
in Detroit
Detroit, Michigan
Detroit is the major city among the primary cultural, financial, and transportation centers in the Metro Detroit area, a region of 5.2 million people. As the seat of Wayne County, the city of Detroit is the largest city in the U.S. state of Michigan and serves as a major port on the Detroit River...
argue that the bonobo and common chimpanzee are so closely related to humans that their genus
Genus
In biology, a genus is a low-level taxonomic rank used in the biological classification of living and fossil organisms, which is an example of definition by genus and differentia...
name also should be classified with the human genus Homo: Homo paniscus, Homo sylvestris, or Homo arboreus. An alternative philosophy suggests that the term Homo sapiens is the misnomer
Misnomer
A misnomer is a term which suggests an interpretation that is known to be untrue. Such incorrect terms sometimes derive their names because of the form, action, or origin of the subject becoming named popularly or widely referenced—long before their true natures were known.- Sources of misnomers...
rather, and that humans should be reclassified as Pan sapiens, though this would violate the Rule of Priority as Homo was named before Pan (1758 for the former, 1816 for the latter). In either case, a name change of the genus would have implications on the taxonomy
Taxonomy
Taxonomy is the science of identifying and naming species, and arranging them into a classification. The field of taxonomy, sometimes referred to as "biological taxonomy", revolves around the description and use of taxonomic units, known as taxa...
of other species closely related to humans, including Australopithecus
Australopithecus
Australopithecus is a genus of hominids that is now extinct. From the evidence gathered by palaeontologists and archaeologists, it appears that the Australopithecus genus evolved in eastern Africa around 4 million years ago before spreading throughout the continent and eventually becoming extinct...
. The current line between Homo and non-Homo species is drawn about 2 million years ago, and chimpanzee and human ancestry converges only about 7 million years ago, nearly three times earlier.
Recent DNA evidence suggests the bonobo and common chimpanzee species effectively separated from each other less than one million years ago. The chimpanzee line split from the last common ancestor
Human evolution
Human evolution refers to the evolutionary history of the genus Homo, including the emergence of Homo sapiens as a distinct species and as a unique category of hominids and mammals...
shared with human
Human
Humans are the only living species in the Homo genus...
s approximately six to seven million years ago. Because no species other than Homo sapiens has survived from the human line of that branching, both Pan species are the closest living relatives of humans and cladistically
Cladistics
Cladistics is a method of classifying species of organisms into groups called clades, which consist of an ancestor organism and all its descendants . For example, birds, dinosaurs, crocodiles, and all descendants of their most recent common ancestor form a clade...
are equally close to humans.
Fossils
Chimpanzee fossils were not described until 2005. Existing chimpanzee populations in West and Central Africa do not overlap with the major human fossil sites in East Africa. However, chimpanzee fossils have now been reported from KenyaKenya
Kenya , officially known as the Republic of Kenya, is a country in East Africa that lies on the equator, with the Indian Ocean to its south-east...
. This would indicate that both humans and members of the Pan clade
Clade
A clade is a group consisting of a species and all its descendants. In the terms of biological systematics, a clade is a single "branch" on the "tree of life". The idea that such a "natural group" of organisms should be grouped together and given a taxonomic name is central to biological...
were present in the East African Rift Valley
East African Rift
The East African Rift is an active continental rift zone in eastern Africa that appears to be a developing divergent tectonic plate boundary. It is part of the larger Great Rift Valley. The rift is a narrow zone in which the African Plate is in the process of splitting into two new tectonic plates...
during the Middle Pleistocene
Pleistocene
The Pleistocene is the epoch from 2,588,000 to 11,700 years BP that spans the world's recent period of repeated glaciations. The name pleistocene is derived from the Greek and ....
. According to A. Zihlman Bonobo body proportions closely resemble those of Australopithecus. Richard Dawkins
Richard Dawkins
Clinton Richard Dawkins, FRS, FRSL , known as Richard Dawkins, is a British ethologist, evolutionary biologist and author...
, in his book The Ancestor's Tale
The Ancestor's Tale
The Ancestor's Tale is a 2004 popular science book by Richard Dawkins, with contributions from Dawkins' research assistant Yan Wong. It follows the path of humans backwards through evolutionary history, meeting humanity's cousins as they converge on common ancestors...
, proposes that chimpanzees and bonobos are descended from Australopithecus Gracile type species (see Homininae
Homininae
Homininae is a subfamily of Hominidae, which includes humans, gorillas and chimpanzees, and some extinct relatives; it comprises all those hominids, such as Australopithecus, that arose after the split from orangutans . Our family tree, which has 3 main branches leading to chimpanzees, humans and...
); in other words, the ancestors of chimpanzees and bonobos would be some of the Australopithecus afarensis.
Physical characteristics
The bonobo is sometimes considered to be more gracileGracile
The English word "gracile" means slender. It derives from the Latin adjective gracilis , or gracile which in either form means slender, and when transferred for example to discourse, takes the sense of "without ornament", "simple", or various similar connotations.In his famous "Glossary of Botanic...
than the common chimpanzee, and females are somewhat smaller than males. Its head is smaller than that of the common chimpanzee with less prominent brow ridges above the eyes. It has a black face with pink lips, small ears, wide nostrils, and long hair on its head that forms a part. Females have slightly more prominent breasts, in contrast to the flat breasts of other female apes, although not so prominent as those of humans. The bonobo also has a slim upper body, narrow shoulders, thin neck, and long legs when compared to the common chimpanzee.
Bonobos are both terrestrial and arboreal. Most ground locomotion is characterized by quadrupedal knuckle walking. Bipedal walking
Walking
Walking is one of the main gaits of locomotion among legged animals, and is typically slower than running and other gaits. Walking is defined by an 'inverted pendulum' gait in which the body vaults over the stiff limb or limbs with each step...
has been recorded as less than 1% of terrestrial locomotion in the wild, a figure that decreased with habituation
Habituation
Habituation can be defined as a process or as a procedure. As a process it is defined as a decrease in an elicited behavior resulting from the repeated presentation of an eliciting stimulus...
, while in captivity there is a wide variation. Bipedal walking in captivity, as a percentage of bipedal plus quadrupedal locomotion bouts, has been observed from 3.9% for spontaneous bouts to nearly 19% when abundant food is provided. These physical characteristics and its posture give the bonobo an appearance more closely resembling that of humans than that of the common chimpanzee (see: bipedal Bonobos). The bonobo also has highly individuated facial features, as humans do, so that one individual may look significantly different from another, a characteristic adapted for visual facial recognition in social interaction.
Neoteny
Multivariate analysis has shown that bonobos are more neotenized than the common chimpanzeeCommon Chimpanzee
The common chimpanzee , also known as the robust chimpanzee, is a great ape. Colloquially, the common chimpanzee is often called the chimpanzee , though technically this term refers to both species in the genus Pan: the common chimpanzee and the closely related bonobo, formerly called the pygmy...
, taking into account such features as the proportionately long torso length of the bonobo. This conclusion has been challenged by other researchers.
Diet
This primatePrimate
A primate is a mammal of the order Primates , which contains prosimians and simians. Primates arose from ancestors that lived in the trees of tropical forests; many primate characteristics represent adaptations to life in this challenging three-dimensional environment...
is mainly frugivorous, but supplements its diet with leaves and meat from small vertebrates such as flying squirrel
Flying squirrel
Flying squirrels, scientifically known as Pteromyini or Petauristini, are a tribe of 44 species of squirrels .- Description :...
s and duiker
Duiker
A duiker is any of about 21 small to medium-sized antelope species from the subfamily Cephalophinae native to Sub-Saharan Africa.Duikers are shy and elusive creatures with a fondness for dense cover; most are forest dwellers and even the species living in more open areas are quick to disappear...
s, and invertebrates. In some instances, bonobos have been shown to consume lower-order primates. Some claim that bonobos have also been known to practice cannibalism in captivity, a claim disputed by others. However there is at least one confirmed report of cannibalism in the wild as reported by researchers Gottfried Hohmann and Andrew Fowler.
Psychological characteristics
Primatologist Frans de WaalFrans de Waal
Fransiscus Bernardus Maria de Waal, PhD , is a Dutch primatologist and ethologist. He is the Charles Howard Candler professor of Primate Behavior in the Emory University psychology department in Atlanta, Georgia, and director of the Living Links Center at the Yerkes National Primate Research...
states that bonobos are capable of altruism
Altruism
Altruism is a concern for the welfare of others. It is a traditional virtue in many cultures, and a core aspect of various religious traditions, though the concept of 'others' toward whom concern should be directed can vary among cultures and religions. Altruism is the opposite of...
, compassion
Compassion
Compassion is a virtue — one in which the emotional capacities of empathy and sympathy are regarded as a part of love itself, and a cornerstone of greater social interconnection and humanism — foundational to the highest principles in philosophy, society, and personhood.There is an aspect of...
, empathy
Empathy
Empathy is the capacity to recognize and, to some extent, share feelings that are being experienced by another sapient or semi-sapient being. Someone may need to have a certain amount of empathy before they are able to feel compassion. The English word was coined in 1909 by E.B...
, kindness, patience, and sensitivity
Sensitivity (human)
The sensitivity or insensitivity of a human, often considered with regard to a particular kind of stimulus, is the strength of the feeling it results in, in comparison with the strength of the stimulus...
. How peaceful bonobos are has been disputed by some, however.
Peacefulness
Observations in the wild indicate that the males among the related common chimpanzee communities are extraordinarily hostile to males from outside the community. Parties of males 'patrol' for the unfortunate neighbouring males who might be traveling alone, and attack those single males, often killing them. This does not appear to be the behavior of bonobo males or females in their own communities, where they seem to prefer sexual contact over violent confrontation with outsiders. In fact, the Japanese scientists who have spent the most time working with wild bonobos describe the species as extraordinarily peaceful, and De Waal has documented how bonobos may often resolve conflicts with sexual contact (hence the "make love – not war" characterization for the species). Between groups social mingling may occur, in which members of different communities have sex and groom each other, behaviour which is unheard of among common chimpanzees. Conflict is still possible between rival groups of bonobos, but no official scientific reports of it exist. The ranges of bonobos and chimpanzees are separated by the Congo River with bonobos living south of the river and chimpanzees living north of the river. It has been hypothesized that bonobos are able to live a more peaceful lifestyle in part because of an abundance of nutritious vegetation in their natural habitat, allowing them to travel and forage in large parties.The popular image of the bonobo as a peaceful ape does not always apply to captive populations. Accounts exist of bonobos confined in zoo
Zoo
A zoological garden, zoological park, menagerie, or zoo is a facility in which animals are confined within enclosures, displayed to the public, and in which they may also be bred....
s mutilating one another and engaging in bullying. These incidents may be due to the practice in zoos of separating mothers and sons, which is contrary to their social organization in the wild. Bonobo society is dominated by females, and severing the lifelong alliance between mothers and their male offspring may make them vulnerable to female aggression. De Waal has warned of the danger of romanticizing bonobos: "All animals are competitive by nature and cooperative only under specific circumstances" as well as writing that "when first writing about their behavior, I spoke of 'sex for peace' precisely because bonobos had plenty of conflicts. There would obviously be no need for peacemaking if they lived in perfect harmony." There is no eyewitness account of lethal aggression among bonobos, neither in captivity nor in the wild.
Hohmann and Surbeck published in 2008 that bonobos sometimes do hunt monkey species. Five incidents were observed in a group of bonobos in Salonga National Park
Salonga National Park
Salonga National Park is a national park in the Democratic Republic of the Congo located in the Congo River basin. It is Africa's largest tropical rainforest reserve covering about 36,000 km². Animals in the park include bonobos, Salonga monkeys, Tshuapa red colobus, Zaire peacocks, forest...
, which seemed to reflect deliberate cooperative hunting. On three occasions, the hunt was successful and infant monkeys were captured. This behavior falls under feeding, however, not aggression.
Social behavior
Bonobo party size
Group size measures
Many animals, including humans, tend to live in groups, herds, flocks, bands, packs, shoals, or colonies of conspecific individuals. The size of these groups, as expressed by the number of participant individuals, is an important aspect of their social environment...
tends to vary because the groups exhibit a fission-fusion pattern
Fission-fusion society
In primatology, a fission-fusion society is one in which the social group, e.g. bonobo collectives of 100-strong, sleep in one locality together, but forage in small groups going off in different directions during the day. This form of social organization occurs in several other species of...
. A community of approximately 100 will split into small groups during the day while looking for food, and then comes back together to sleep. They sleep in trees in nests that they construct.
Sexual social behavior
Sexual intercourseSexual intercourse
Sexual intercourse, also known as copulation or coitus, commonly refers to the act in which a male's penis enters a female's vagina for the purposes of sexual pleasure or reproduction. The entities may be of opposite sexes, or they may be hermaphroditic, as is the case with snails...
plays a major role in bonobo society observed in captivity, being used as what some scientists perceive as a greeting
Greeting
Greeting is an act of communication in which human beings intentionally make their presence known to each other, to show attention to, and to suggest a type of relationship or social status between individuals or groups of people coming in contact with each other...
, a means of forming social bonds, a means of conflict resolution
Conflict resolution
Conflict resolution is conceptualized as the methods and processes involved in facilitating the peaceful ending of some social conflict. Often, committed group members attempt to resolve group conflicts by actively communicating information about their conflicting motives or ideologies to the rest...
, and post-conflict reconciliation. Bonobos are the only non-human animal to have been observed engaging in all of the following sexual activities: face-to-face genital sex (although a pair of Western Gorillas has been photographed performing face-to-face genital sex), tongue kissing, and oral sex
Oral sex
Oral sex is sexual activity involving the stimulation of the genitalia of a sex partner by the use of the mouth, tongue, teeth or throat. Cunnilingus refers to oral sex performed on females while fellatio refer to oral sex performed on males. Anilingus refers to oral stimulation of a person's anus...
. In scientific literature, the female-female behavior of touching genitals together is often referred to as GG rubbing or genital-genital rubbing, or, as referred to commonly by British
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
primate researchers, "scissoring." The sexual activity happens within the immediate community and sometimes outside of it. Bonobos do not form permanent monogamous sexual relationships
Monogamy
Monogamy /Gr. μονός+γάμος - one+marriage/ a form of marriage in which an individual has only one spouse at any one time. In current usage monogamy often refers to having one sexual partner irrespective of marriage or reproduction...
with individual partners. They also do not seem to discriminate in their sexual behavior by sex or age, with the possible exception of abstaining from sexual intercourse between mothers and their adult sons. 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 encouraging peaceful feeding.
Bonobo males occasionally engage in various forms of male-male genital behavior. In one form, two males hang from a tree limb face-to-face while "penis fencing". This also may occur when two males rub their penises together while in face-to-face position. Another form of genital interaction ("rump rubbing") occurs to express reconciliation between two males after a conflict, when they stand back-to-back and rub their scrotal sacs together. Takayoshi Kano observed similar practices among bonobos in the natural habitat.
Bonobo females also engage in female-female genital behavior, possibly to bond socially with each other, thus forming a female nucleus of bonobo society. The bonding among females enables them to dominate bonobo society. Although male bonobos are individually stronger, they cannot stand alone against a united group of females. Adolescent females often leave their native community to join another community. Sexual bonding with other females establishes these new females as members of the group. This migration mixes the bonobo gene pool
Gene pool
In population genetics, a gene pool is the complete set of unique alleles in a species or population.- Description :A large gene pool indicates extensive genetic diversity, which is associated with robust populations that can survive bouts of intense selection...
s, providing genetic diversity
Genetic diversity
Genetic diversity, the level of biodiversity, refers to the total number of genetic characteristics in the genetic makeup of a species. It is distinguished from genetic variability, which describes the tendency of genetic characteristics to vary....
.
Bonobo reproductive rates are no higher than those 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, enabling them to rejoin the sexual activities of their society. Also, bonobo females who are sterile or too young to reproduce still engage in sexual activity.
Similarity to humans
Bonobos are capable of passing the mirror-recognition test for self-awareness. They communicate primarily through vocal means, although the meanings of their vocalizations are not currently known. However, most 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 TrustGreat Ape Trust
The Great Ape Trust is a ape sanctuary and language study in Des Moines, Iowa, that houses orangutans and bonobos. The sanctuary opened to primates on September 28, 2004. The mission of the Great Ape Trust is studying language, culture, intelligence, and tool use in primates...
, Kanzi
Kanzi
Kanzi , also known by the lexigram , is a male bonobo who has been featured in several studies on great ape language. According to Sue Savage-Rumbaugh, a primatologist who has studied the bonobo throughout her life, Kanzi has exhibited advanced linguistic aptitude.- Biography :Born to Lorel and...
and Panbanisha
Panzee and Panbanisha
Panpanzee, often called "Panzee", and Panbanisha, also known by the lexigram , are two apes with whom research is being carried out in the United States. Panzee lives at the Language Research Center at Georgia State University and Panbanisha lives at the Great Ape Trust in Iowa...
, have been taught how to communicate using a keyboard labeled with lexigrams (geometric symbols) and they can respond to spoken sentences. Kanzi's vocabulary consists of more than 500 English words and he has comprehension of around 3,000 spoken English words. Kanzi has also been known for learning from observation of people trying to teach his mother. His mother was not learning some things and Kanzi started doing the tasks that his mother was taught just by watching. Some, such as philosopher and bioethicist
Bioethics
Bioethics is the study of controversial ethics brought about by advances in biology and medicine. Bioethicists are concerned with the ethical questions that arise in the relationships among life sciences, biotechnology, medicine, politics, law, and philosophy....
Peter Singer
Peter Singer
Peter Albert David Singer is an Australian philosopher who is the Ira W. DeCamp Professor of Bioethics at Princeton University and Laureate Professor at the Centre for Applied Philosophy and Public Ethics at the University of Melbourne...
, argue that these results qualify them for "rights to survival and life
Right to life
Right to life is a phrase that describes the belief that a human being has an essential right to live, particularly that a human being has the right not to be killed by another human being...
"–rights
Great Ape personhood
Great ape personhood is a movement to create legal recognition of bonobos, common chimpanzees, gorillas, and orangutans as bona fide persons.-First steps:...
that humans theoretically accord to all person
Person
A person is a human being, or an entity that has certain capacities or attributes strongly associated with being human , for example in a particular moral or legal context...
s.
There are instances in which non-human primates have been reported to have expressed joy. One study analyzed and recorded sounds made by human babies and Bonobos when they were tickled. It found although the Bonobo's laugh was a higher frequency, the laugh followed a similar spectrographic pattern to human babies.
Habitat
Bonobos are found only south of the Congo RiverCongo River
The Congo River is a river in Africa, and is the deepest river in the world, with measured depths in excess of . It is the second largest river in the world by volume of water discharged, though it has only one-fifth the volume of the world's largest river, the Amazon...
and north of the Kasai River
Kasai River
The Kasai River is a tributary of the Congo River, located in central Africa. The river begins in Angola and serves as the border between Angola and the Democratic Republic of the Congo , then flows into the DRC, where it joins the Congo northeast of Kinshasa. The Kasai's tributaries include the...
(a tributary of the Congo), in the humid forests of the Democratic Republic of Congo
Geography of the Democratic Republic of the Congo
The Democratic Republic of the Congo includes the greater part of the Congo River Basin, which covers an area of almost . The country's only outlet to the Atlantic Ocean is a narrow strip of land on the north bank of the Congo River....
of central Africa
Africa
Africa is the world's second largest and second most populous continent, after Asia. At about 30.2 million km² including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of the Earth's total surface area and 20.4% of the total land area...
.
Conservation efforts
The IUCN Red ListIUCN Red List
The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species , founded in 1963, is the world's most comprehensive inventory of the global conservation status of biological species. The International Union for Conservation of Nature is the world's main authority on the conservation status of species...
classifies bonobos as an endangered species
Endangered species
An endangered species is a population of organisms which is at risk of becoming extinct because it is either few in numbers, or threatened by changing environmental or predation parameters...
with conservative population estimates ranging from 29,500 to 50,000 individuals. Major threats to bonobo populations include habitat
Habitat (ecology)
A habitat is an ecological or environmental area that is inhabited by a particular species of animal, plant or other type of organism...
loss and hunting for bushmeat
Bushmeat
Bushmeat initially referred to the hunting of wild animals in West and Central Africa and is a calque from the French viande de brousse. Today the term is commonly used for meat of terrestrial wild animals, killed for subsistence or commercial purposes throughout the humid tropics of the Americas,...
, the latter activity having increased dramatically during the first
First Congo War
The First Congo War was a revolution in Zaire that replaced President Mobutu Sésé Seko, a decades-long dictator, with rebel leader Laurent-Désiré Kabila. Destabilization in eastern Zaire that resulted from the Rwandan genocide was the final factor that caused numerous internal and external actors...
and second Congo wars
Second Congo War
The Second Congo War, also known as Coltan War and the Great War of Africa, began in August 1998 in the Democratic Republic of the Congo , and officially ended in July 2003 when the Transitional Government of the Democratic Republic of the Congo took power; however, hostilities continue to this...
in the Democratic Republic of Congo due to the presence of heavily armed militias even in remote "protected" areas such as Salonga National Park
Salonga National Park
Salonga National Park is a national park in the Democratic Republic of the Congo located in the Congo River basin. It is Africa's largest tropical rainforest reserve covering about 36,000 km². Animals in the park include bonobos, Salonga monkeys, Tshuapa red colobus, Zaire peacocks, forest...
. This is part of a more general trend of ape extinction
Ape extinction
Ape extinction, particularly great ape extinction, is one of the most widely held biodiversity concerns.There are very few breeding populations of non-human great apes outside captivity, and all such populations are not only formally classified as endangered species, but in the direct path of human...
.
As the bonobo's habitat is shared with people, the ultimate success of conservation efforts will rely on local and community involvement. The issue of parks versus people is salient in the Cuvette Centrale
Cuvette Centrale
The Cuvette Centrale is a region of forests and wetlands in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. The Cuvette Centrale lies in the center of the Congo Basin, and is bounded on the west, north, and east by the arc of the Congo River....
, the bonobo's range. There is strong local and broad-based Congolese resistance to establishing national parks, as indigenous communities often have been driven from their forest homes by the establishment of parks. In Salonga National Park
Salonga National Park
Salonga National Park is a national park in the Democratic Republic of the Congo located in the Congo River basin. It is Africa's largest tropical rainforest reserve covering about 36,000 km². Animals in the park include bonobos, Salonga monkeys, Tshuapa red colobus, Zaire peacocks, forest...
, the only national park in the bonobo habitat, there is no local involvement, and recent surveys indicate that the bonobo, the African Forest Elephant
African Forest Elephant
The African Forest Elephant is a forest dwelling elephant of the Congo Basin. Formerly considered either a synonym or a subspecies of the African Savanna Elephant , a 2010 study established that the two are distinct species...
, and other species have been severely devastated by poachers
Poaching
Poaching is the illegal taking of wild plants or animals contrary to local and international conservation and wildlife management laws. Violations of hunting laws and regulations are normally punishable by law and, collectively, such violations are known as poaching.It may be illegal and in...
and the thriving bushmeat
Bushmeat
Bushmeat initially referred to the hunting of wild animals in West and Central Africa and is a calque from the French viande de brousse. Today the term is commonly used for meat of terrestrial wild animals, killed for subsistence or commercial purposes throughout the humid tropics of the Americas,...
trade. In contrast to this, there are areas where the bonobo and biodiversity still thrive without any established parks, due to the indigenous beliefs and taboos against killing bonobos.
The port town of Basankusu
Basankusu
Basankusu is a town in Équateur Province, Democratic Republic of the Congo. It is the main town and administrative centre of the Territory of Basankusu. It boasts an airport, covered and open markets, a hospital and two recently installed cellphone networks....
is situated on the Lulonga River
Lulonga River
The Lulonga is a river in the Equateur province of Democratic Republic of the Congo. It is about 200 km long from its beginning at the town of Basankusu. There the Lopori and the Maringa join to form the Lulonga. The Lulonga river flows into the Congo River at the town Lulonga....
, at the confluence of the Lopori
Lopori River
The Lopori river is a river in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. The Lopori, and the Maringa River to the south, join near Basankusu to form the Lulonga River, a tributary of the Congo River....
and Maringa
Maringa River
The Maringa river is a river in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. The Maringa, and the Lopori River to the north, join near Basankusu to form the Lulonga River, a tributary of the Congo River....
Rivers, in the north of the country, making it well placed to receive and transport local goods to the cities of Mbandaka
Mbandaka
Mbandaka, formerly known as Coquilhatville or Coquilhatstad , is a city on the Congo River in the Democratic Republic of Congo, lying near the confluence of the Congo and Ruki Rivers. The capital of the Equateur District, it is home to an airport and is linked by ferry to Kinshasa and Boende...
and Kinshasa
Kinshasa
Kinshasa is the capital and largest city of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. The city is located on the Congo River....
. With Basankusu
Basankusu
Basankusu is a town in Équateur Province, Democratic Republic of the Congo. It is the main town and administrative centre of the Territory of Basankusu. It boasts an airport, covered and open markets, a hospital and two recently installed cellphone networks....
being the last port of substance before the wilderness of the Lopori Basin and the Lomako River – the bonobo heartland, conservation efforts for the bonobo, use the town as a base.
In 1995, concern over declining numbers of Bonobos in the wild led the Zoological Society of Milwaukee in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, with contributions from Bonobo scientists around the world, to publish the Action Plan for Pan paniscus: A Report on Free Ranging Populations and Proposals for their Preservation. The Action Plan compiles population data on Bonobos from twenty years of research conducted at various sites throughout the Bonobo's range. The plan identifies priority actions for Bonobo conservation and serves as a reference for developing conservation programs for researchers, government officials, and donor agencies.
Acting on Action Plan recommendations, the ZSM developed the Bonobo and Congo Biodiversity Initiative (BCBI). This program includes habitat and rain-forest preservation, training for Congolese nationals and conservation institutions, wildlife population assessment and monitoring, and education. The Zoological Society has conducted regional surveys within the range of the bonobo in conjunction with training Congolese researchers in survey methodology and biodiversity monitoring. The Zoological Society’s initial goal was to survey Salonga National Park to determine the conservation status of the bonobo within the park and to provide financial and technical assistance to strengthen park protection. As the project has developed, the Zoological Society has become more involved in helping the Congolese living in bonobo habitat. The Zoological Society has built schools, hired teachers, provided some medicines, and, , started an agriculture project to help the Congolese learn to grow crops and depend less on hunting wild animals.
During the wars in the 1990s, researchers and international non-governmental organization
Non-governmental organization
A non-governmental organization is a legally constituted organization created by natural or legal persons that operates independently from any government. The term originated from the United Nations , and is normally used to refer to organizations that do not form part of the government and are...
s (NGOs) were driven out of the Bonobo habitat. In 2002, the Bonobo Conservation Initiative
Bonobo Conservation Initiative
The Bonobo Conservation Initiative is a non-profit organization based in Washington, D.C. and the Democratic Republic of the Congo that promotes conservation of the bonobo and its habitat in the tropical forests of the Congo Basin....
initiated the Bonobo Peace Forest Project in cooperation with national institutions, local NGOs, and local communities. The Peace Forest Project works with local communities to establish a linked constellation of community-based reserves, managed by local and indigenous people. Although there has been only limited support from international organizations, this model, implemented mainly through DRC organizations and local communities, has helped bring about agreements to protect over 5000 square miles (12,949.9 km²) of the bonobo habitat. According to Dr. Amy Parish, the Bonobo Peace Forest "is going to be a model for conservation in the 21st century."
This initiative has been gaining momentum and greater international recognition and it recently has gained greater support through Conservation International
Conservation International
Conservation International is a nonprofit organization headquartered in Arlington, Virginia, which seeks to ensure the health of humanity by protecting Earth's ecosystems and biodiversity. CI’s work focuses on six key initiatives that affect human well-being: climate, food security, freshwater...
, the Global Conservation Fund, United States Fish and Wildlife Service
United States Fish and Wildlife Service
The United States Fish and Wildlife Service is a federal government agency within the United States Department of the Interior dedicated to the management of fish, wildlife, and natural habitats...
's Great Ape Conservation Fund, and the United Nations' Great Apes Survival Project
Great Apes Survival Project
The Great Apes Survival Project , established in 2001, aims to conserve the great apes and their habitat — primarily forested tropical ecosystems that provide important services to humanity, through pro-poor conservation and sustainable development strategies.GRASP is a UNEP and UNESCO-led World...
.
With grants from the United Nations, USAID, the U.S. Embassy, the World Wildlife Fund, and many other groups and individuals, the Zoological Society also has been working to:
- Survey the Bonobo population and its habitat in order to find ways to help protect these apes.
- Develop anti-poaching measures to help save apes, forest elephants, and other endangered animals in Congo's Salonga National Park, a U.N. World Heritage Site.
- Provide training, literacy education, agricultural techniques, schools, equipment, and jobs for Congolese living near Bonobo habitats so that they will have a vested interest in protecting the great apes. , the ZSM started an agriculture project to help the Congolese learn to grow crops and depend less on hunting wild animals.
- Model small-scale conservation methods that can be used throughout Congo.
Starting in 2003, the U.S. government allocated $54 million to the Congo Basin Forest Partnership. This significant investment has triggered the involvement of international NGOs to establish bases in the region and work to develop bonobo conservation programs. This initiative should improve the likelihood of Bonobo survival, but its success still may depend upon building greater involvement and capability in local and indigenous communities.
The Congo is setting aside more than 11000 square miles (28,489.9 km²) of rain forest to help protect the endangered Bonobo, in this central African country. U.S. agencies, conservation groups, and the Congolese government have come together to set aside 11803 square miles (30,569.6 km²) of tropical rain forest, the U.S.-based Bonobo Conservation Initiative. The area amounts to just over 1% of the vast Congo – but that means a park larger than the state of Massachusetts.
The bonobo population is believed to have declined sharply in the last thirty years, though surveys have been hard to carry out in war-ravaged central Congo. Estimates range from 60,000 to fewer than 50,000 living, according to the World Wildlife Fund.
The Sankuru reserve also contains Okapi
Okapi
The okapi , Okapia johnstoni, is a giraffid artiodactyl mammal native to the Ituri Rainforest, located in the northeast of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, in Central Africa...
, closely related to the Giraffe
Giraffe
The giraffe is an African even-toed ungulate mammal, the tallest of all extant land-living animal species, and the largest ruminant...
, that also is native to Congo, elephants, and at least ten other primate species.
In addition, concerned parties have addressed the crisis on several science and ecological websites. Organizations such as the World Wide Fund for Nature
World Wide Fund for Nature
The World Wide Fund for Nature is an international non-governmental organization working on issues regarding the conservation, research and restoration of the environment, formerly named the World Wildlife Fund, which remains its official name in Canada and the United States...
, the African Wildlife Foundation
African Wildlife Foundation
The African Wildlife Foundation , founded in 1961 as the African Wildlife Leadership Foundation, is an international conservation organization that focuses on critically important landscapes in Africa....
, and others are trying to focus attention on the extreme risk to the species. Some have suggested that a reserve be established in a more stable part of Africa, or on an island in a place such as Indonesia. Awareness is ever increasing and even non-scientific or ecological sites have created various groups to collect donations to help with the conservation of this species.
See Also
- Lola ya BonoboLola ya BonoboFounded by Claudine Andre in 1994, Lola ya Bonobo is the world's only sanctuary for orphaned bonobos. Since 2002, the sanctuary has been located at the Petites Chutes de la Lukaya, just outside of Kinshasa in the Democratic Republic of the Congo....
- Claudine AndréClaudine AndréClaudine André, , is a Belgian conservationist. She founded Lola ya bonobo in 1994, which is a bonobo sanctuary, just south of Kinshasa, at Mont Ngafula, in the Lukaya Valley, Democratic Republic of Congo.The aim of the sanctuary is to collect young bonobos, most having been orphaned due to the...
- Chimpanzee genome projectChimpanzee genome projectThe Chimpanzee Genome Project is an effort to determine the DNA sequence of the Chimpanzee genome. It is expected that by comparing the genomes of humans and other apes, it will be possible to better understand what makes humans distinct from other species....
- Great ape personhoodGreat Ape personhoodGreat ape personhood is a movement to create legal recognition of bonobos, common chimpanzees, gorillas, and orangutans as bona fide persons.-First steps:...
- PolygynandryPolygynandryPolygynandry occurs when two or more males have an exclusive relationship with two or more females. The numbers of males and females need not be equal, and in vertebrate species studied so far, the number of males is usually lower.-In Bonobos:...
, PolygamyPolygamyPolygamy is a marriage which includes more than two partners...
, PolygynyPolygynyPolygyny is a form of marriage in which a man has two or more wives at the same time. In countries where the practice is illegal, the man is referred to as a bigamist or a polygamist... - Homosexual behavior in animals
- List of apes – notable individual apes
- List of fictional apes
- BasankusuBasankusuBasankusu is a town in Équateur Province, Democratic Republic of the Congo. It is the main town and administrative centre of the Territory of Basankusu. It boasts an airport, covered and open markets, a hospital and two recently installed cellphone networks....
, DR Congo – base for bonobo research and conservation
Books
- de Waal, FransFrans de WaalFransiscus Bernardus Maria de Waal, PhD , is a Dutch primatologist and ethologist. He is the Charles Howard Candler professor of Primate Behavior in the Emory University psychology department in Atlanta, Georgia, and director of the Living Links Center at the Yerkes National Primate Research...
and Frans LantingFrans LantingFrans Lanting, is a Dutch photographer specializing in wildlife photography.Lanting was born in Rotterdam and later emigrated to the United States after being educated in the Netherlands. He now lives in Santa Cruz, California and operates a studio and gallery, as well as a stock photography...
, Bonobo: The Forgotten Ape, University of California PressUniversity of California PressUniversity of California Press, also known as UC Press, is a publishing house associated with the University of California that engages in academic publishing. It was founded in 1893 to publish books and papers for the faculty of the University of California, established 25 years earlier in 1868...
, 1997. ISBN 0-520-20535-9; ISBN 0-520-21651-2 (trade paperback) - Kano, Takayoshi, The Last Ape: Pygmy Chimpanzee Behavior and Ecology, Stanford, CA: Stanford University PressStanford University PressThe Stanford University Press is the publishing house of Stanford University. In 1892, an independent publishing company was established at the university. The first use of the name "Stanford University Press" in a book's imprinting occurred in 1895...
, 1992. - Savage-Rumbaugh, SueSue Savage-RumbaughSue Savage-Rumbaugh , also known by the lexigram , is a primatologist most known for her work with two bonobos, Kanzi and Panbanisha, investigating their use of "Great Ape language" using lexigrams and computer-based keyboards...
and Roger LewinRoger LewinRoger Lewin is a British anthropologist, scientist and author of 20 books.Lewin was a staff member of New Scientist in London for nine years. He went to Washington, D.C. to write for Science for ten years as News Editor. An example article was "Evolutionary Theory Under Fire", 21, November 1980, ...
, Kanzi: The Ape at the Brink of the Human Mind, John WileyJohn Wiley & SonsJohn Wiley & Sons, Inc., also referred to as Wiley, is a global publishing company that specializes in academic publishing and markets its products to professionals and consumers, students and instructors in higher education, and researchers and practitioners in scientific, technical, medical, and...
, 1994. ISBN 0-471-58591-2; ISBN 0-471-15959-X (trade paperback) - Woods, VanessaVanessa WoodsVanessa Woods is an internationally published Australian scientist, author and journalist, and is the main Australian/New Zealand feature writer for the Discovery Channel...
, Bonobo Handshake, Gotham Books, 2010. ISBN 978-1-59240546-6 - Sandin, Jo, Bonobos: Encounters in Empathy, Zoological Society of Milwaukee & The Foundation for Wildlife Conservation, Inc., 2007. ISBN 978-0979415104
Articles
- de Waal, Frans, "Bonobo: Sex & Society", Scientific American, 1995
- de Waal, Frans, "Bonobos, Left & Right", Skeptic, August 8, 2007.
- DeBartolo, Anthony. "The Bonobo: 'Newest' apes are teaching us about ourselves", Chicago TribuneChicago TribuneThe Chicago Tribune is a major daily newspaper based in Chicago, Illinois, and the flagship publication of the Tribune Company. Formerly self-styled as the "World's Greatest Newspaper" , it remains the most read daily newspaper of the Chicago metropolitan area and the Great Lakes region and is...
June 11, 1998.
External links
- ARKive – BBC images and movies of the bonobo (Pan paniscus)
- Evolution: Why Sex?
- Bonobo Social Organization
- Bonobos: Wildlife summary from the African Wildlife Foundation
- NPR's Science Friday piece on bonobos
- Primate Info Net Pan paniscus Factsheet
- U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service Species Profile
- "The Last Great Ape", an episode of NovaNOVA (TV series)Nova is a popular science television series from the U.S. produced by WGBH Boston. It can be seen on the Public Broadcasting Service in the United States, and in more than 100 other countries...
. - Image: bonobos genito-genital rubbing
- Susan Savage-Rumbaugh: Apes that write, start fires and play Pac-Man – Ted.com
- WWF (World Wide Fund for Nature / World Wildlife Fund) – Bonobo species profile