By Adithi Ramakrishnan
New York (AP) – Female bonobos find the strength of the figures, teaming up to repel men in the wild, according to a new study.
With chimpanzees, bonobos are among the closest parents of humans. Scientists have long wondered why bonobos live in societies generally dominated by women, because males are physically larger and stronger.
Three decades of observations in the Congo – the only place where endangered bonobos are in nature – support the idea of a fraternity where bonobos women come together to assert their power.
These groups of girls chased the male bonobos of trees, securing food for themselves, and women who have gathered more classified in the social scale of their community, revealed researchers.
“It is very clear that you do not want to exceed as a male bonobo,” said the author of the study Martin Surbeck of Harvard University.
The results were published Thursday in the journal Communications Biology.
The combined numbers of bonobos women seem to turn the trend against the physical strength of a man, said Surbeck. This is one of the rare moments when such a strategy allowed women to go out at the top of the animal kingdom. Spotted hyenas also find power in groups.
Female bonobos were linked even when they had no close links, supporting each other against males and cementing their social position. Observations show how female bonobos work together to protect themselves from male violence, said biological anthropologist Laura Lewis from the University of California in Berkeley.
The results support “the idea that humans and our ancestors have probably used coalitions to build and maintain power for millions of years,” said Lewis, who was not involved in research, in an email.
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Originally published:
California Daily Newspapers
