Male bonobos derive their status from the status of his mother the females rule the communities and are more aggressive. Female bonobos give birth on average of 4-6 years and they nurse their children until the age of 3 or 4 years.Īdult male bonobos can mate with infants even when their too young to reproduce, mothers can help their sons in to mating with more females. Unlike common chimpanzees, Bonobo chimpanzee communities are dominated by females.īonobo sexual behavior is somehow different from other chimpanzees for example they engage in tongue kissing, oral sex and genital massaging have also been recognized among bonobos. Bonobos have been observed to resolve conflict with sexual contact unlike other species of chimpanzees that may kill any outside that try to come near their territories.īonobos also different means for communication just like other great apes for example they can use facial expressions to show their emotions, body language, gestures and vocalizations for communicating to one another and this can be used during grooming sessions, feeding playing and in case of danger.īonobo monkeys are less aggressive and studies show that their brains have larger regions assumed to be vital for sensing distress in others, feeling empathy and this makes them peaceful and less aggressive compared to other chimpanzee species.īonobo chimpanzee are omnivores apes with a diet mainly comprised of fruits, leaves, stems and supplement their diet with honey, eggs, flying squirrels, small duikers, small monkeys and so much more. The Bonobo population is estimated to be 30,000 to 50,000 individuals left in the wilderness putting them as an endangered species. There has been little research about the Bonobo chimpanzee due to its timidity with the political instability at the Democratic republic of Congo.

The Bonobo chimpanzees are distinguished from the common chimpanzee by parted long hair on its head, their tail tuft, black face, pink lips and longer legs. We suggest that this neural system not only supports increased empathic sensitivity in bonobos, but also behaviors like sex and play that serve to dissipate tension, thereby limiting distress and anxiety to levels conducive with prosocial behavior.Chimpanzee are divided into two species of Bonobo chimpanzees and Common chimpanzees, though they are similar they have some few differences according to habitat, size, some behaviors and diet. The Bonobo also known as dwarf or gracile chimpanzees and sometimes referred to as Pygmy chimpanzee, is a species of chimpanzee inhabiting the primary and secondary forests of the Congo area basin at the Democratic republic of Congo in Central Africa. Bonobos also have a larger pathway linking the amygdala with the ventral anterior cingulate cortex, a pathway implicated in both top-down control of aggressive impulses as well as bottom-up biases against harming others. We find that bonobos have more gray matter in brain regions involved in perceiving distress in both oneself and others, including the right dorsal amygdala and right anterior insula. Here, we present the first ever comparison of chimpanzee and bonobo brains using diffusion tensor imaging, supplemented with a voxel-wise analysis of T1-weighted images to specifically compare neural circuitry implicated in social cognition.

However, the neurobiological basis of these differences has only been minimally investigated and remains uncertain. Differences have been reported in multiple aspects of social behavior, including aggression, sex, play and cooperation. Our two closest living primate relatives, chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes) and bonobos (Pan paniscus), exhibit significant behavioral differences despite belonging to the same genus and sharing a very recent common ancestor.

Bonobo vs chimpanzee aggression