Stevens said there are about 35,000 bonobos left on the central Congo basin, and that bush meat consumption could lead to their extinction. In 1979, a circus director in France bought what he believed to be. The brain test is part of a campaign by the Royal Zoological Society of Antwerp in Belgium to raise money to tackle the problem of bonobos being captured in the wild and sold as bush meat.īush meat, which also includes meat from gorillas and chimpanzees, is considered a delicacy in parts of Africa. ( Pan troglodytes ) H ybridization between chimpanzees ( Pan troglodytes) and bonobos, also known as pygmy chimpanzees, ( Pan paniscus) has occurred in captivity ( Vervaecke and van Elsacker 1992, Vervaecke 2002 Vervaecke et al. May be she is just very keen on getting walnuts? May be she is just very motivated and not very intelligent?" he pondered. "The question now is 'is Djanoa really an Einstein in the bonobo world or are there other things that play. Until he has proven that scientifically, Stevens said he can't be sure of anything. He wants to find out if monkeys, like human beings, have personalities. Stevens compared the chimps to babies who like new toys, but get bored quickly and lose attention.įor Stevens, the competition opened the way into further research into monkeys' behaviours. The competition included six games, or tests, that had to be undertaken in a limited timeframe - time the chimpanzees wasted with alpha male in-fighting, while the matriarchal competitors muddled through.īehavioural biologist and bonobo specialist Jeroen Stevens and his colleagues at the zoo expected the tool-wielding chimps to win, but were surprised by the persistence and motivation of a female bonobo named Djanoa. They live in matriarchies where females lead the group and frequently use sex to resolve social conflicts. The bonobo apes, more commonly known as pygmy chimpanzees, beat the group of chimpanzees 4-2 in intelligence tests.īonobos are a primate unique to Congo and humankind's closest relative - they share 98.4 percent of their genetic make-up with humans. Matriarchal monkeys showed alpha apes who has the most intelligence after the females won a competition for "cleverest monkey" organised by Antwerp Zoo.
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