Bonobo and Chimpanzee by Takeshi Furuichi

Author:Takeshi Furuichi
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9789811380594
Publisher: Springer Singapore

3.2.6 A Mother Raises a Boss

In 2011, I decided to mainly observe the PE group, a neighboring group to the E1 group. One objective of my study was to more thoroughly observe the members’ behaviors during intergroup encounters with the E1 group. Another objective was to investigate whether the same type of social system that we had observed in the E1 group was also present in another group.

It had been a long time since I last followed the PE group, and there were many individuals that I did not recognize. I had been told by a local research assistant that when Moninga (which means “friend” in Lingala), one of the males, appeared, he often excitedly moved around while blowing up other males.

“How formidable was he?” I asked myself, but in fact, it turned out that he was only about 20 years old at most and still had an air of youthfulness. When everyone was relaxing and grooming in one place, Moninga would suddenly appear and begin lunging at everyone and moving around. As I saw such behavior, I thought, “Oh, yes, it is the same in this group.”

In the chimpanzee, the highest-ranking (or alpha) males achieve the position at around 20 years old [95, 96]. Only those males that have reached middle age with their physical condition in peak and have succeeded in various social experiences can hold the highest rank. There are also reports that males with a supportive brother are more likely to attain a high rank [14, 97]. Interestingly, in the bonobo, relatively younger males often achieve the top position. When I began observing the E1 group, Ibo was the highest-ranking male and was about 21 years old. So he had achieved the top position when he was younger than 20 years old. And the male that replaced him, Ten, was only about 13 years old. Now the highest-ranking male of this group, Nobita, was also about 20 when he first achieved the highest position (Figs. 3.13 and 3.14). The reason why these males were able to obtain the highest rank when they were still young is clear. At the time, all of their mothers were highest-ranking and at their peak in social prowess.

Fig. 3.13The highest-ranking male, Nobita, stays alongside his mother, Kiku, who is the highest-ranking female

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.