![]() So far, the male skull has been excavated. One area of particular interest is the brain size. He says they are unusually advanced for an Australopithecus, and may show how the australopiths evolved into humans. Together with a large team of researchers, Berger has spent the last year intensively studying the two A. sediba skeletons. Not until Homo erectus evolved, around 1.8 million years ago, did larger brains appear. Unlike chimpanzees and other apes, they walked on two legs, but their brains were still small. Excavated by Lee Berger of the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, and colleagues, they were given the name Australopithecus sediba.Īustralopithecines were early hominids that lived between 4 and 2 million years ago: the best-known fossil example is a 3.2-million-year-old Australopithecus afarensis skeleton found in Ethiopia and nicknamed Lucy. Both about 1.2 metres tall, they are unusually complete and well-preserved and date from 1,977,000 years ago. The two fossils, an adult female and a juvenile male, were discovered in the Malapa cave system near Johannesburg, South Africa, in 2008. A year of detailed study has revealed that the skeletons are a hodgepodge of anatomical features: some bones look almost human while others are chimpanzee-like. ![]() "We are mixed.Two fossil skeletons of early humans appear to mark a halfway stage between primitive “ape-men” and our direct ancestors. "Humans can be a fantastic bonobo with a big heart or a very dangerous warrior," she says. Those are all traits you can see in humans, on a good day, André says. What all the science suggests is that bonobos have evolved in a way that predisposes them to sharing, tolerance, negotiation and cooperation. The difference involved circuits controlling social and emotional behaviors. One study even found a structural difference between the brains of bonobos and chimps. But bonobos (and dogs) almost immediately learned to look to the scientist for a gesture indicating the right cup. Then they invited several different animal species to figure out which cup hid the treat.Ĭhimps, despite their cleverness, just kept choosing one of the cups at random. In their book Survival of the Friendliest, published in 2020, Brian Hare and Vanessa Woods describe an experiment in which a researcher would hide a treat under one of two upside-down cups. Shots - Health News How Humans Domesticated Themselves This time, the bonobo with food usually shared with the stranger first, then invited the friend to join in. Later, the scientists repeated the experiment with three bonobos, one of whom was a stranger. "But we were surprised to see that roommate is more important than favorite food." "In our mind, we thought that because of nice food they would first eat," Kwetuenda says. The bonobo with food was given a choice: eat alone, or use a special key to let in their neighbor. The fruit plate was topped with a type of cream Kwetuenda calls "bonobo sauce." Then they gave one of the animals a plate of prized food, like bananas or apples, which have to be imported. In one experiment, the scientists put two bonobos in adjacent rooms. They were done in Lola's "bonobo lab," a building that features room-size cages and a place for scientists to observe what happens inside them. The experiments were carried out by a team that included Kwetuenda and Brian Hare, a professor of evolutionary anthropology at Duke University. And both of these great apes share 98.7% of their DNA with humans, making them our closest living relatives. The researchers think bonobos may help explain how humans evolved the capacity to be nice – at least some of the time.īonobos look like smallish chimpanzees, with whom they share 99.6% of their DNA. This sort of harmony is why, for more than a decade, scientists from around the world have been coming to this sanctuary just outside Kinshasa, along the banks of the Lukaya River. "As you see, there is many action of sex, many negotiation," she tells me. With chimpanzees, the prospect of food can lead to aggression.īut bonobos take a different approach, says Suzy Kwetuenda, a biologist at Lola, for whom English is a third language. Soon, more than a dozen bonobos have assembled near the grassy perimeter of their enclosure. The air fills with piercing shrieks as bonobos nearby tell their friends in the forest that pineapple is coming. " Allez," caretaker Bernard Nsangu shouts in French as he gets ready to distribute a morning snack. ![]() It's feeding time at Lola ya Bonobo, a sanctuary for bonobos in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Esake, photographed at the Lola ya Bonobo sanctuary in the Democratic Republic of the Congo in 2019, was rescued from a hunter who killed her mom. ![]()
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