Chimpanzees Are from Mars, Bonobos Are from Venus

June 9, 2009

A bonobo considering a peaceful solution...

DNA testing shows that bonobos and chimpanzees are our two closest living relatives. So what can they tell us about how we live, lust, and love? Apparently a lot.

Let’s start with a word of explanation. Primates consist of five species, four of which are commonly called “great apes,” and then there are humans. Of course depending on who is doing the telling, humans are great apes as well.

Humans and apes are all “Hominoids,” and you should never insult a primatologist by referring to them as monkeys. All apes are different from monkeys in two obvious ways, first they are larger, second, no primate has a tail. But what is it that makes the study of chimps and bonobos so fascinating and such a source of great debate?

As best as we know today, the orangutan was the first of the great apes to leave our common ancestor’s family tree, that occurred approximately 14 million years ago. Gorillas appear to break off next at 7.5 million years ago, followed by humans, 5 million years back, and the chimp and the bonobo split from each other 2.5 million years ago.

It’s amazing to think that we learned of the existence of Bonobos in 1929, just eighty years ago. Without that discovery primatologists would have been at a great disadvantage to explain human behavior as observed through the study of just one of our two closest living relatives, the chimpanzee.

In his new book, Our Inner Ape, respected primatologist Frans de Waal describes the personality differences between chimps and bonobos like this: “One is a gruff-looking, ambitious character with anger management issues. The other is an egalitarian proponent of a free-spirited lifestyle.”

while a chimp contemplates battle.

Chimps have been known to us since the seventeenth century. And they have always provided a dark window into the more frightening aspects of human behavior. Chimps will for example inflict pain on other animals for the sheer enjoyment it gives them. Bonobos, on the other hand are referred to by the French as “left bank chimps,” because they are apes that prefer to make love not war. As de Waal explains, “What struck me most watching bonobos for the first time was how sensitive they seemed. I witnessed a minor squabble over a cardboard box, in which a male and female ran around and pummeled each other until all of a sudden the fight was over and they were making love!”

The strong peaceable bonds of bonobo groups creates a matriarchal society, which in certain cases is not above having disputes of its own. In the bonobo world it is the mature female that will leave the family to go off and mate. In bonobo society the male’s power is derived from its mother and it will stay with the family group into which it was born. Outside males are not tolerated by bonobo mothers and will be attacked by females if they attempt to interfere with that arrangement.

Chimpanzee societies revolve around male power politics. As de Waal explains, “Ultimately their battles are about females, which means the fundamental difference between our two closest relatives is that one resolves sexual issues with power, while the other resolves power issues with sex.”

As de Waal points out, thanks to the relatively recent discovery of bonobos we are “blessed with two close primate relatives to study.” Clearly we are a mix of both of these behaviors. We are capable of both horrific cruelty and great acts of selflessness. The more that we know and understand about chimpanzees and bonobos the better able we will be to understand ourselves.

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