The most interesting information from this week to me was in the article, “What Is War Good for? Ask a Chimpanzee” where it talks about how female Bonobos use mating as a way to resolve and prevent conflicts. The article says that female Bonobos will mate with both males and females of a new group they encounter in order to reduce tensions between the two groups, and that female Bonobos will mate with males even when they are pregnant to reduce aggression and prevent fighting between the males. This is interesting for a few reasons. One reason is that it shows that Bonobos use sex for things other than reproduction which is rare in animals other than humans. This to me also shows a level of complex problem solving as they are taking steps to prevent possible violence using a method that isn’t directly related to the problem, mating with females and mating while pregnant doesn’t directly solve the mating-related problems that cause chimp violence. The other interesting thing from this article was the females mating with females and what that might mean about Bonobos’ sexuality. The article doesn’t address this, so I looked around on google and while there having been many examples of female-female and male-male sex experts aren’t sure how to relate this to human’s understanding of sexuality. It could mean Bonobos have a much less rigid concept of sexuality than humans and will engage in sexual activity with another Bonobo regardless of sex as long it is pleasurable. It could also mean Bonobos have defined sexualities, but we can’t distinguish them without more research. It might also mean that Bonobos have no concept of sexuality and are just engaging in activities that give them pleasure. This is very intriguing to me and I hope that there is more definitive research on this subject in the future. I think we can learn a lot about humans by comparing ourselves to non-human primates. One thing we can do is find specific behavioral and physical similarities between the two groups. This means that these traits are likely inherited from a common ancestor we shared long ago and could help to identify that ancestor. Which could help us understand our origins and why we look and act the way we do. Comparing similarities between humans and other primates could also help us understand why humans are the only remaining hominids. Are there traits that only occur in homo sapiens and primates, and not in any other hominids? Were there other primates that were out competed and how and why were they out competed? In addition to looking at similarities we can look at how humans differ from other primates. Differences between us could explain how humans became the dominant species on earth. Identifying what adaptations give humans the ability to manipulate and change their environment in ways non-human primates can’t would help in understanding why humans are more intelligent than other animals. It could also shed light on whether human intelligence was developed due to other adaptations that humans have and primates don’t, or if it developed independently and we are just lucky to have it.
4 thoughts on “Blog 4”
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Hi Liam, I found your blog post very interesting and thoroughly enjoyed reading it. I also thought the information on the female Bonobos and their mating practices were interesting. I thought it was cool to see that bonobos are a species who use sex to reduce aggression and tension and prevent fighting and not only just to produce children. I also found it very interesting how the female bonobos mated with both male and female bonobos and the concept of homosexuality in species other than humans is very interesting to me. I too enjoyed learning how we have inherited specific behavioral and physical traits from the bonobos and was able to draw my own comparisons in my head on the mating situation similarities. Overall, it was a good blog post!
Hey there Liam,
I also thought the most interesting information from this week also came from the article, “What Is War Good for? Ask a Chimpanzee”. When I read about the bonobos, I thought it was also very interesting the way the females used their sexuality in order to keep the peace between their group and new groups they come across as well. I also think it’s interesting the research you did saying not only would the female bonobos mate with the males of opposing groups but also the females as well. In regard to your ideas of sexuality I agree that maybe the bonobos haven’t distinguished sexuality or in another sense don’t care about it and are purely doing it for the pleasure of the act.
Hi Liam, this was a great blog! I also touched on this article in my blog and I appreciate you talking about the Bonobos and sharing you views on the topics. I like you point on how the example reveals that the Bonobos use sex for more than reproduction. I immediately thought that this was very comparable to humans beings today, as sex might not be used for to reduce tension and prevent conflict, but it is used in more ways and for more things besides reproduction. With the notion of sexuality from the Bonobos issue, I had the thought that our non human ancestors probably didn’t have a sense of sexuality, and it probably wasn’t important to them. With this I had the thought that maybe the concept of sexuality is something that could be considered a social construct due to the fact that it used to be really important for women to provide heirs in older times.
Hi liam! I agree with you on a lot of your comments on the article, “What Is War Good for? Ask a Chimpanzee”. The mating habits of the female bonobos raised a lot of questions for me. Is their sexuality the same across the whole species? or is it specific to that singular chimp like how it is for humans? or is it not really sexuality at all and thats just their way of life and them doing things to make themselves happy? You also talked about how they use sex as a way to regulate the male tension and to reduce the amount of fighting and how this is thought to be correlated with higher thinking and problem solving. I found that super interesting.