Bonobos opt to share their food

[baldy]

The headline made me smile, then I read the article and it made me sad.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/8548478.stm

One of our closest primate relatives, the bonobo, has been shown to voluntarily share food, scientists report.
This sort of generous behaviour was previously thought by some to be an exclusively human trait.
But a team has carried out an experiment that revealed that bonobos were more likely to choose to share their food than opt to dine alone.
The research is published in the journal Current Biology.

[Johnboy74]

Why did it make you sad exactly?

[Talyn]

Why did it make you sad exactly?

Because they are kept in a cage so that people can study them?

[xrodolfox]

Sounds like an obvious finding.

It is appalling if they did this study in a lab. It seems so doable in the wild by observation. Jeesh.

Don't all social animals display some degree of altruism?

[Gelert]

It is appalling if they did this study in a lab. It seems so doable in the wild by observation.

Watch the video if you have a chance. If you don't, this is the gist: A bonobo is let into an enclosure which contains some fruit. He or she tastes the fruit. Another bonobo is watching from another enclosure. The first bonobo opens a gate to let in the second one, and they share the food.

That precise experiment, by definition, requires a two-room enclosure. But its conclusions could almost certainly be found by study in the wild. With the added bonus that the bonobos are untrained by feeding etc.

I wonder though, given the bonobos' reputation as mad shaggers if bonobo one was just hoping for a bit of action from bonobo two in return for the fruit.

[baldy]

Why did it make you sad exactly?

The poor guy is intelligent enough to want share his dinner with his buddy, possibly try get some action and clever enough to pick the lock to get to the next room. But still has to live like a prisoner so we can study him.

What more does he need to do before we stop keeping him in captivity.

I have no idea if its a he or she, but easier for me to identify with him being a male.

I wonder though, given the bonobos' reputation as mad shaggers if bonobo one was just hoping for a bit of action from bonobo two in return for the fruit.

Its never that simple.

[Johnstuff]

These experiments seem cruel and pointless. They really show how stupid humans are.

I love they way they always think things are 'exclusively human traits'.

[Gelert]

I wonder though, given the bonobos' reputation as mad shaggers if bonobo one was just hoping for a bit of action from bonobo two in return for the fruit.

Its never that simple.

No it isn't. But swopping food for sex is well known to occur in bonobos. That's the simple bit. The less simple bit is when people start using the P word to describe it.

If someone has a spare ten minutes and is feeling a little too comfortable and doesn't mind being disturbed, I'd suggest a read through the following book chapter by someone called Frans de Waal which makes the above story seem tame.

I have no idea what he looks like, but I can't help imagining a pair of hairy, sweaty palms clutching feverishly at a pair of binoculars. There's evidently a long tradition in some circles of perving at bonobos in cages.

http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=quu6 ... ex&f=false