Study Documents First Observation of Bonobos Sharing Meat with Neighbors

Bonobos (Pan paniscus) are willing to share meat with members of neighboring communities. This unusual behavior, documented in a study in the journal Human Nature, was observed recently in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC).

African breadfruit (Treculia africana) sharing: a party is gathered around the owner (a male). Image credit: LuiKotale Bonobo Project / Barbara Fruth.

Even though bonobos have been studied for years, animal behaviorists have only realized in the past two decades that these primates do not only eat plants, but similar to the common chimpanzee (Pan troglodytes), also hunt and share their catch among members of their own social group.

The new study is the first observation of sharing behavior across community borders.

Dr. Gottfried Hohmann of the Max-Planck-Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Germany and Dr. Barbara Fruth of Liverpool John Moores University in the UK and the Royal Zoological Society of Antwerp in Belgium witnessed this behavior in January 2017 while studying two neighboring communities of bonobos in a forest area near Bompusa River, DRC.

The scientists have previously noted that these communities hunt or eat meat twice a month on average. In most cases they opportunistically kill a small forest antelope called a duiker.

One afternoon, bonobos from the Bompusa West community met up with the Bompusa East bonobo community.

After the alpha male of the West party caught a duiker, he was immediately approached by members of both communities.

He moved into the crown of a tall tree, followed by nine females (four from the one group, five from the other) and their offspring. For the next half an hour, the team watched how he dished out some meat to all of them.

“Solicitation involved behaviors such as peering and stretched out hands but no aggression or forceful taking. As in other cases, the transfer of food from the male to females was passive,” Dr. Fruth said.

One of the females from the East party then removed the duiker’s entire head to share pieces of meat with her offspring and adult females from both communities.

A female from the West party only shared a leg from the carcass with her offspring and other female members of her party.

Only the initial male participated in the meat-sharing episode, despite seven others being present.

The social structure of bonobos is dominated by females, and sex plays a major part in keeping the peace within a group.

During the course of the meat-feeding period, the researchers also observed how females (even ones from different groups) rubbed their genitals together. A male mated with a female from an opposing community, while grooming between members of the different groupings also took place.

“No aggression was observed among females, between males and females, or among males, a behavior not uncommon during other inter-community encounters,” Dr. Fruth said.

“Cooperative behaviors such as hunting and food sharing play an important role in constructing models of human origins,” Dr. Hohmann added.

“Scrutiny of these behavioral patterns in our closest living relatives, the chimpanzee and the bonobo, provides potential insights into how our last common ancestor may have acted when dividing food with others.”

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Barbara Fruth Gottfried Hohmann. Food Sharing across Borders: First Observation of Intercommunity Meat Sharing by Bonobos at LuiKotale, DRC. Human Nature, published online April 5, 2018; doi: 10.1007/s12110-018-9311-9