The details are in the journal eLife.ĬHANG: Amy Parish, a primatologist at the University of Southern California, specializes in bonobo behavior. PFEIFFER: And that, they say, is suggestive of culture.
MARTIN SURBECK: Two groups of the same species which live at the exact same place, you know, which basically hunt at the same place do not hunt the same prey.
You might have two cultures living near or among each other, but one prefers chicken the other prefers beef.ĬHANG: Samuni's colleague at Harvard Martin Surbeck says that's important because it shows that the two groups of bonobos have different preferences despite their overlapping range. PFEIFFER: Samuni says think about it in the context of humans. SAMUNI: So we had one group which specialized on the hunting of a small antelope called duiker, while the other bonobo group specialized on the hunting of anomalure, which is a gliding rodent. And they found a striking dietary difference. But it was always this kind of a puzzle about bonobos.ĬHANG: So for more than four years, the researchers tracked two bonobo groups in the Democratic Republic of Congo, documenting the apes' social interactions and what they hunted. SAMUNI: We already had some information about chimpanzees that they have the ability for culture. They also appear to share our penchant for culture. Now her team has discovered that wild bonobos share more than just DNA with humans and chimps.
That's Liran Samuni, a primatologist at Harvard University. LIRAN SAMUNI: And what's very nice is that they have extremely pink lips, almost as if they put the lipstick on. These endangered apes are covered in incredibly black hair. Bonobos, like chimpanzees, are one of our closest living relatives.
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