Bonobos cooperate between groups

This is the first time that this behavior has been observed outside of the human species: bonobos engage in friendly relations with neighboring groups.

Between bonobos, cooperation takes place, which appears frequent, without immediate benefit. A discovery about these great apes shows that they collaborate with each other, almost like humans. Mathilde Fontez, editor-in-chief of the scientific magazine Epsiloon, returns to this estudy which, once again, brings man down from his pedestal.

franceinfo: Are bonobos too, these great apes which are among our closest cousins, capable of collaborating, of forming friendships, outside of their group?

Mathilde Fontez: Outside of their family yes. They are capable of building strong, lasting relationships with neighbors who are not part of their small society. OYes, that, until then, we thought was unique to humans.

For example, the chimpanzee, our closest cousin, does not form any relationships outside of its group: males are more accustomed to patrolling the borders of their territory, and launching deadly attacks when they encounter isolated strangers.

And this was discovered in bonobos, in their natural environment?

Yes, that’s what makes this study so compelling. Two specialists, Liran Samuni and Martin Surbeck, from Harvard University and the German Primate Center were able to follow two groups of 31 bonobos in the Kokolopori reserve, in the Democratic Republic of Congo. They were able to document all the meetings between these two groups for two years.

And the least we can say is that they have seen a lot of exchanges: the bonobos spend 20% of their time companioning with members of the other group. They travel together, they rest together, they groom each other, they exchange food. They even combine to carry out attacks.

Why is this so surprising?

Because the benefit of these relationships is not obvious at the start. Of course, we see that in the long term, with allies, we do better: by sharing food, we can better fight against a food shortage, for example. But when a bonobo offers food to a stranger to the group, with whom it has no connection, nothing says that it will benefit from the return of the favor.

This assumes that bonobos are capable of lasting bonds, that they have set up a sort of accounting system: this one did me a favor last time, I’m going to go to him. In short, they are capable of accumulating high-level social knowledge, beyond their group, like us. Moreover, this could be a clue to understanding how it all began: how we evolved towards this complex society.