'Hippie Chimps' Had Sex with Mysterious 'Ghost Ape' Hundreds of Thousands of Years Ago

By Charles Q. Choi, Live Science Contributor | April 29, 2019 11:40am ET

Mysterious "ghost apes" may have interbred with the great apes known as bonobos just as modern humans repeatedly had sex with now-extinct human lineages, a new study finds.

Bonobos are, with chimpanzees, humanity's closest living relatives. Together, bonobos and chimps are part of the group Pan, just as modern humans and extinct lineages of humans make up the group Homo.

Recently, geneticists discovered that ancestors of modern humans often interbred with extinct human lineages such as Neanderthals and Denisovans. The DNA from such trysts continues to influence modern humans, from potential immune boosts to increased risk for depression, obesity, heart attacks and nicotine addiction. [In Photos: Bones from a Denisovan-Neanderthal Hybrid]

Previous research suggested that bonobos and chimps may have interbred as well. For example, prior work found genes likely flowed from bonobos to chimpanzees more than 200,000 years ago.

By analyzing the genomes from 10 bonobos and 59 chimpanzeess for signs of genes from unknown ancient groups, scientists have now uncovered evidence that bonobos also had sex with a now-extinct ape lineage.

Read more

Bonobos and chimps equally love meat

APRIL 30, 2019

by Jim Barlow, University of Oregon

In an African forest where leopards and poisonous mamba dwell, a University of Oregon team once had to flee charging boar. But it was a brief detour in research that adds to the idea that bonobos are neither hippies nor vegans.

For six months in 2017, the team, including local guides and colleagues from Northern Kentucky University, hiked a 9-square-mile area of the Lomako Forest in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Their goal was to solidify the idea that bonobos, a female-dominated ape species, eat meat more often than previously believed.

The research effort—funded by the Leakey Foundation and National Geographic Society—paid off.

"Bonobos are a type of chimpanzee, and we are continuing to assess the differences between these different species," said UO doctoral student Colin Brand. "We are finding a lot of similarities and some key differences. Meat-eating seems to be a similar behavior of both species in terms of the rate at which they do it."

Chimps have a broad range in Africa, but bonobos live only in the forest along the big bend of the Congo, the world's ninth-longest river.

While bonobos are known to eat monkeys, some birds and hyrax, their preferred food in the region studied was Weyn's duikers – small antelope easily carried along the ground and up onto tree branches.

In the journal Folia Primatologica, the team documented that bonobos capture and consume meat at the same frequency as male-dominated chimpanzees. They also found that females control the duiker carcasses and get aggressive when other bonobos, especially males, reach for a handout but that they also show tolerance and will share with subadult males.

Continued

Bonobos make themselves appear 'smaller' than they actually are

Date: October 23, 2018

Source: Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology

We can easily see whether someone is large or small, but we can also hear it in the pitch of their voice. For a long time, research on the accoustic communication in humans and animals has accepted the paradigm predicting a causal relationship between body size and voice pitch. Meanwhile, evidence from a large number of animal species has revealed that this relation does not always apply. Various animal species, including chimpanzees, have mechanisms that enable them to produce sounds that are lower than expected for their body size making them sound larger than they actually are -- a common phenomenon in animal communication.

Continued

Study of bonobos finds that day care pays off for the babysitters

June 19, 2018 by Jim Barlow, University of Oregon

Drawn to a behavior she didn't understand, a UO researcher watching bonobos in a zoo has revealed how young female bonobos prepare for motherhood.

"After studying bonobos for several years, I noticed that juveniles and adolescents were obsessed with the babies," said Klaree Boose, an instructor in the UO Department of Anthropology. "They played with the babies and carried them around. It appeared to be more than just play behavior."

Her findings, now online, will be part of a special issue of the journal Physiology & Behavior. The study documents how young females acquire maternal skills and forge alliances that pay off in times of hostility by handling infants, whether they are related to them or not.

The research, done with captive bonobos at the Columbus Zoo and Aquarium in Ohio, also explains behaviors that scientists have seen but only focused on in the wild, said study co-author Frances White, head of the UO's anthropology department. White has studied bonobos in their natural habit in Africa for years.

"It is common in the wild to see infant bonobos be a focus of enormous interest to others, especially to adolescent bonobos," White said. "It is often noticeable how bonobo mothers are willing to let others get close and interact with their infants, as compared to chimpanzees who are more restrictive."

This study, she said, allowed the team to take that knowledge and explore individual relationships in a way that has not been done in the wild.

"The Columbus Zoo has done a wonderful job of copying wild behavior in letting the bonobos divide on a day-by-day basis into different groupings, much as they do in the wild," White said. "This zoo setting made this kind of study, which looks at normal wild behaviors, possible."

Bonobos in the wild live in a small area of the Congo Basin in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. They are often mistaken as chimpanzees but are a separate species. The females hold high-ranking positions and often form female-female coalitions that stand up to males.

Read more at: 

Bonobos have human-like sense of disgust, researchers find

June 4, 2018, Kyoto University

Even bonobos lose their appetites with enough if they experience disgust. These primates, known for their liberal attitudes toward sex, are also generally open-minded when it comes to new foods—as long as it's is clean.

Researchers from Kyoto University's Primate Research Institute have now found that a bonobo's curiosity transforms into caution when food is presented with or near feces, soil, or bad smells. Their study was published in the journal Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B.

In nature, parasites and pathogens are everywhere, and can enter the body along with food. Humans have therefore adapted sensitivity to the signs of such pathogens.

"Current studies suggest that animals evolved a system to protect against such threats, now known as the adaptive system of disgust," says Cecile Sarabian, lead author of the study. "For example, bodily fluids are universal disgust elicitors in humans, and recently, we published evidence that the same reaction exists in our primate cousins."

In a series of experiments, bonobos were presented with different food choices involving novel food items: foods contaminated with feces or soil; chains of food items linked to a contaminant; previously contaminated food; or only the odors of feces or rotting food.

Although bonobos happily gobbled up clean food, they steadfastly avoided anything contaminated. Moreover, their sensitivity to contamination risk seemed to wane the farther away a food item was located from the source of contamination.

Read more at: 

Bonobo and chimpanzee gestures share multiple meanings

Date:  February 27, 2018

Source:  University of York

Summary:

Two closely related great ape species, the bonobo and chimpanzee, use gestures that share the same meaning researchers have found.

Chimpanzees and bonobos use gestures in a variety of different situations and for multiple purposes, such as to initiate and change positions during grooming.

Continued  

Rudeness Wins: Bonobos Are Attracted to Creeps

By Mindy Weisberger, Senior Writer | January 5, 2018 12:53pm ET

"You like me because I'm a scoundrel," interstellar smuggler Han Solo confidently told Princess Leia Organa in the 1981 film "The Empire Strikes Back." And scientists recently discovered a similar preference in bonobos, the great apes that are close relatives of chimpanzees.

Bonobos (Pan paniscus) are helpful sweethearts compared with their more aggressive chimp cousins (Pan troglogytes). But a new study found that these generally peaceful primates were also more likely to respond positively to individuals that were selfish, bullying or downright mean.

In other words, they're drawn to jerks. [8 Humanlike Behaviors of Primates]

Of course, Han Solo ultimately proved that he was quite a bit nicer than his self-serving manner initially suggested. But bonobos demonstrated in a series of trials that they were more likely to favor individuals that treated others poorly.

Prior research has shown that bonobos go out of their way to help others, even when their assistance hasn't been requested and they receive no reward for lending a hand. But when scientists showed bonobos videos in which some characters prevented others from reaching a goal, the bonobo subjects unexpectedly preferred the harmful individuals to the helpful ones.

Continued  

Bonobos help strangers without being asked

November 7, 2017 by Robin A. Smith

A passer-by drops something and you spring to pick it up. Or maybe you hold the door for someone behind you. Such acts of kindness to strangers were long thought to be unique to humans, but recent research on bonobos suggests our species is not as exceptional in this regard as we like to think.

Famously friendly apes from Africa's Congo Basin, bonobos will go out of their way to help strangers too, said Jingzhi Tan, a postdoctoral associate in evolutionary anthropology at Duke University.

A previous study by Tan and associate professor of evolutionary anthropology Brian Hare found that bonobos share food with strangers. Now, in a new series of experiments, the team is trying to find out just how far this kindness goes.

The researchers studied wild-born bonobos at the Lola ya Bonobo sanctuary in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

In one experiment, they found that bonobos will help a stranger get food even when there is no immediate payback.

Sixteen bonobos were led one at a time into one of two adjacent rooms separated by a fence. The researchers hung a piece of apple from a rope just above the empty room, visible but out of reach.

The apes couldn't access the fruit or the rope. But if they climbed the fence they could reach a wooden pin holding the rope to the ceiling and release the dangling fruit, causing it to drop within reach of any bonobo that entered the next room.

Read more at: 

Study finds bonobos may be better representation of the last common ancestor with humans than common chimpanzees

April 29, 2017

A new study examining the muscular system of bonobos provides firsthand evidence that the rare great ape species may be more closely linked, anatomically, to human ancestors than common chimpanzees. Previous research suggested this theory at the molecular level, but this is the first study to compare in detail the anatomy of the three species.

"Bonobo muscles have changed least, which means they are the closest we can get to having a 'living' ancestor," said Bernard Wood, professor of human origins at the GW Center for the Advanced Study of Human Paleobiology.

Scientists believe that modern human and common chimpanzee/bonobo lineages split about 8 million years ago with the two great ape species splitting about 2 million years ago. As common chimpanzees and bonobos evolved after their split, they developed different traits and physical characteristics, even though they remained geographically relatively close, with their main division being the Congo River. Because of this, researchers have been curious as to what those differences are and how they compare to humans. By studying the muscles of bonobos (which indicates how they physically function), the team was able to discover that they are more closely related to human anatomy than common chimpanzees, in the sense that their muscles have changed less than they have in common chimpanzees.

Earlier studies examined the DNA similarities and differences between bonobos and common chimpanzees, but this was the first study to compare the muscles of the three species.

Read more at: 

Genome sequencing reveals ancient interbreeding between chimpanzees and bonobos

Date: October 27, 2016

Source: Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute

For the first time, scientists have revealed ancient gene mixing between chimpanzees and bonobos, humankind's closest relatives, showing parallels with Neanderthal mixing in human ancestry. Published in the journal Science, the study from scientists at the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute and their international collaborators showed that one percent of chimpanzee genomes are derived from bonobos.

The study also showed that genomics could help reveal the country of origin of individual chimpanzees, which has strong implications for chimpanzee conservation.

Chimpanzees and bonobos are great apes found only in tropical Africa. They are endangered species and are supposedly fully protected by law, yet many chimpanzees and bonobos are captured and held illegally.

To aid the conservation effort, researchers analysed the whole genome sequences of 75 chimpanzees and bonobos, from 10 African countries, and crucially included 40 new wild-born chimpanzees from known geographic locations. They discovered that there was a strong link between the genetic sequence of a chimpanzee, and their geographic origin.

Dr Chris Tyler Smith, from the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute, said: "This is the largest analysis of chimpanzee genomes to date and shows that genetics can be used to locate quite precisely where in the wild a chimpanzee comes from. This can aid the release of illegally captured chimpanzees back into the right place in the wild and provide key evidence for action against the captors."

Read more

Bonobo squeaks hint at earlier speech evolution

By Jonathan WebbScience reporter, BBC News

4 August 2015 

From the sectionScience & Environment

Wild bonobos use a single high-pitched call in a variety of contexts, showing a flexibility in their communication that was thought to be uniquely human.

That is the conclusion of a study by UK and Swiss psychologists.

Bonobos are just as closely related to humans as chimpanzees, but their wild communication is much less studied.

Researchers say the new findings push back the development of context-free vocal calls to our shared ancestor with bonobos, 6-10 million years ago.

The paper is published in the journal PeerJ.

Similar to babies

For a long time, it was assumed that non-human primates, including great apes like chimpanzees and bonobos, could only communicate using calls that were tied to specific emotional states - such as screaming in alarm, or barking for aggression.

Using a single vocal signal in multiple contexts - referred to as "functional flexibility" - was thought to be a human ability. And it is something we develop very early.

Babies as young as 3-4 months, for example, have been shown to use squeals and growls across a wide range of situations, whether they are happy, distressed or neutral. These sit alongside other noises that are obviously tied to particular emotions, such as crying and laughing.
read on ..

Being Gay Is Natural: Just Ask Bonobos (Op-Ed)

Brian Hare and Vanessa Woods, Duke University | March 28, 2014 05:41pm ET

Brian Hare is an associate professor of evolutionary anthropology at Duke University, and Vanessa Woods is the author of "Bonobo Handshake"(Gotham, 20011). Woods and Hare are on the board of the nonprofit Lola ya Bonobo, a sanctuary for orphan bonobos in Congo. The authors contributed this article to Live Science's Expert Voices: Op-Ed & Insights.

Lodja sees Mwanda and shrieks in excitement. They run toward each other with such force that when they embrace, they fall to the ground in each other's arms. Without much foreplay, Lodja grinds her hips against Mwanda and their clitorises rub together with increasing speed and friction. They hold each other tight, cry and shriek, and when it is over, they fall apart exhausted, and lazily snack on some fruit.

There are hundreds of examples of non-reproductive sex among animals, from albatrosses to koalas. But none of these examples can make people quite so uncomfortable as bonobos do. Two bonobo females having sex looks very different than two female albatrosses sitting placidly on their nest. Bonobo sex looks human.

Continued

Bonobos Stay Young Longer: Unlike Humans and Chimpanzees, Bonobos Retain Elevated Thyroid Hormones Well Into Adulthood

Dec. 17, 2013 — Despite the fact that chimpanzees and bonobos share similar starting conditions at birth they develop different behavioural patterns later in life. These differences might be caused by different hormone levels.

Researchers of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany, and the Royal Zoological Society of Antwerp in Belgium have analyzed thyroid hormones from urine samples of zoo-living chimpanzees and bonobos. They discovered that bonobos retain elevated thyroid hormone concentrations well into adulthood, whereas in humans and chimpanzees thyroid hormone concentrations decline after puberty. The late decline of thyroid hormones in bonobos might have consequences on their behaviour and might also indicate a delayed development of their mental capacities.

Continued

Bonobos comfort each other

Young bonobos that are more ‘socially competent' are more likely to cuddle and calm other apes that are in distress, research has revealed.

November 2013. Scientists in an African sanctuary found that bonobos that recovered quickly from an upsetting experience, such as a fight, were also more likely to comfort others. This mirrors findings from studies in children and suggests bonobos manage their emotions in a similar way.

The researchers, whose findings are published in PNAS journal, captured footage showing ‘emotionally competent' young apes rushing to hug other juveniles that were screaming after being attacked.

Previous studies documenting bonobos' responses to others' emotions have led them to be known as the ‘empathic apes'. Prof Frans de Waal from Yerkes National Primate Research Centre at Emory University in Atlanta said these new results revealed that their ability to console one another was part of this empathy.

He added: "It is almost as if one needs to have one's own emotional house in order before one is ready to visit the emotional house of another. This is true of children, and apparently also for bonobos."

http://www.wildlifeextra.com/go/news/bonobos013.html

Apes Have Temper Tantrums, Too

Stephanie Pappas, LiveScience Senior Writer

Date: 29 May 2013 Time: 05:00 PM ET

Chimpanzees and bonobos have temper tantrums when their decisions don't play out as they'd hoped, hinting that humans aren't the only species to let emotions influence their choices.

These non-human apes pout, whimper, scratch themselves and bang on things when a risky choice fails to pay off or when they have to wait for a desired reward, according to new research published Wednesday (May 29) in the journal PLOS ONE.

"Even though animals don't engage in economic behavior like humans with money, the psychological skills that humans bring to the table when making economic decisions seem to be shared with animals," said study leader Alexandra Rosati, a postdoctoral researcher in psychology at Yale University. 

Emotional choices

Humans have the power of logic, but that doesn't always mean they use it. Multiple studies of decision-making have found that emotions play a big role in choices, particularly when information is complicated or incomplete. Humans also anticipate their own emotional reactions to various outcomes when making choices, Rosati told LiveScience. For example, people who know they'll feel great regret if they lose at gambling tend to gamble less than those who don't feel the pain of loss as keenly.

Rosati and her colleagues wanted to know how far back this emotional decision-making evolved. As humans' closest living relatives, chimps (Pan troglodytes) and bonobos (Pan paniscus) were the perfect places to look. Evidence of emotional decisions in these apes would suggest humans share this tendency with other primate relatives. If the apes were unemotional decision-makers, however, it might suggest emotional decision-making evolved later in the human lineage.

Read more

Young bonobos offer comforting hugs and sex

Young bonobos console their fellow apes with hugs and sex, say scientists.

Although bonobos are known as the "empathic" apes, researchers previously thought that comforting behaviour was too complex for juveniles to grasp.

But studies at the Lola Ya Bonobo sanctuary in DR Congo, revealed that the youngsters often consoled the losers of social squabbles.

Researchers also found that apes raised by their mothers were more likely to offer comfort than orphans.

The results are published in the journal PLoS One.

Dr Zanna Clay, from Emory University in Atlanta, US undertook the study at the centre, near Kinshasa. The sanctuary rehabilitates rescued bonobos and is the largest of its kind in the world.

"I've spent a long time observing bonobos over the years, and have often noticed how much juvenile bonobos approach victims to comfort them," Dr Clay told BBC Nature.

Continued:  http://www.bbc.co.uk/nature/21199540

Bonobos Will Share With Strangers Before Acquaintances

Jan. 2, 2013 — You're standing in line somewhere and you decide to open a pack of gum. Do you share a piece with the coworker standing to one side of you, or with the stranger on the other?

Most humans would choose the person they know first, if they shared at all.

But bonobos, those notoriously frisky, ardently social great apes of the Congo, prefer to share with a stranger before sharing with an animal they know. In fact, a bonobo will invite a stranger to share a snack while leaving an acquaintance watching helplessly from behind a barrier.

"It seems kind of crazy to us, but bonobos prefer to share with strangers," said Brian Hare, a professor of evolutionary anthropology at Duke University. "They're trying to extend their social network." And they apparently value that more than maintaining the friendships they already have.

To measure this willingness to share, Hare and graduate student Jingzhi Tan ran a series of experiments with bonobos living in the Lola ya Bonobo sanctuary in Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of Congo. The experiments involved piles of food and enclosures that the test subjects were able to unlock and open. Tan and Hare describe their work in a paper in the Jan. 2, 2013 edition of PLOS ONE.

Cotninued:  http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/01/130102173312.htm

Bonobos Catch Yawns from Friends

For bonobos, yawning is contagious, but only between friends.

Yawns spread more easily between family and close friends, and from high-status monkeys to those lower on the totem pole, according to a study published online today (Nov. 14) in the journal PLoS ONE. This pattern of social yawning mimics one found in humans and suggests infectious yawning is a byproduct of empathy, which coordinates emotions in a group.

"It underlines that the mechanism of yawn contagion in the two species is the same," said study co-author Elisabetta Palagi, a primate researcher at the University of Pisa in Italy. "One of the possible functions of yawn contagion is to synchronize individuals of a social group. In humans, yawn contagion is extremely important but just between people who share strong bonds."

Continued:  http://www.livescience.com/24785-bonobos-catch-yawns.html

Bonobo Stone Tools as Competent as Ancient Human?

(ISNS) -- The great apes known as bonobos can make stone tools far more varied in purpose than previously known, reaching a level of technological competence formerly assigned only to the human lineage, according to researchers.

These findings may shed light on the mental capabilities of the last common ancestor of humans and these apes, scientists added.

Bonobos are, with chimpanzees, humanity's closest living relatives. Together bonobos and chimps are part of the group Pan, just as modern humans and extinct species of humans make up the group Homo.

Read on:  http://www.livescience.com/22539-bonobo-stone-tools-as-competent-as-ancient-human.html

Unraveling the Bonobo's Genome, and its Secrets

Ulindi, a female bonobo at the Leipzig Zoo in Germany, has had her genome sequenced, researchers report today (June 13), making bonobos the last of the great apes to have their genomes mapped. The resulting genetic code may help unlock the secrets that separate humans — physically, intellectually and behaviorally — from our closest primate relatives.

Bonobos are often seen as the chimpanzee's peaceful cousin. The two primates look very similar and are very closely related, but for some reason chimps resolve conflicts with war while bonobos prefer sex to resolve arguments. Previous studies have also shown that bonobos are more generous with food than chimps are.

"Bonobos and chimpanzees are very different in their behaviors," study researcher Kay Pruefer, of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, in Germany, told LiveScience. "While we are not yet able to look at the genome and know why that is, it's important to know the differences between bonobos and chimpanzees to tease apart what genes might be responsible for that."

Continued:  http://www.livescience.com/20940-unraveling-bonobo-genome-secrets.html