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.
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