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Responses toward a trapped animal by wild bonobos at Wamba

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Abstract

Chimpanzees and bonobos are the closest living relatives of humans and diverged relatively recently in their phylogenetic history. However, a number of reports have suggested behavioral discrepancies between the two Pan species, such as more cooperative and tolerant social interaction and poorer tool-using repertoires in bonobos. Concerning hunting behavior and meat consumption, recent studies from the field have confirmed both behaviors not only in chimpanzees but also in bonobos. The present study reports an encounter by wild bonobos at Wamba with a duiker trapped in a snare. Bonobos interacted with the live duiker for about 10 min but did not eventually kill the animal. They showed fear responses when the duiker moved and exhibited behaviors related to anxiety and stress such as branch-drag displays and self-scratching. Although bonobos manipulated nearby saplings and parts of the snare, they did not use detached objects to make indirect contact with the duiker. Juveniles and adults of both sexes engaged in active interactions with the trapped duiker. Overall, bonobos’ behavioral responses indicated species-specific cognitive characteristics largely different from those of chimpanzees.

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Acknowledgments

The present study was supported by grants from Ministry of Education, Science, and Culture in Japan (#19700245 and #23700313 to MH, #20002001 to T Matsuzawa), Asia-Africa Science Platform Program, ITP-HOPE Project (ITP-23-012 to HR), and Environment Research and Technology Development Fund (D-1007) of the Ministry of the Environment, Japan. Special thanks are due to Takeshi Furuichi, Nahoko Tokuyama, Chie Hashimoto, Tetsuya Sakamaki, Yasuko Tashiro, local guides and staff at Wamba, and the members of CREF, WCBR, and AWF for their assistance and support during the authors’ stay in DR Congo. We are extremely grateful to Tetsuro Matsuzawa, Masaki Tomonaga, Ikuma Adachi, Tomoko Imura, and the staff of the Section of Language and Intelligence and the Center for Human Evolution Modeling Research of the Primate Research Institute, Kyoto University, as well as staff at the Japan Monkey Centre, for enabling us to conduct our field trip. Special thanks are also due to Dora Biro for improving the manuscript. The field observation complied with the current laws of the countries involved, and with ethical standards for conducting field studies of nonhuman primates.

Conflict of interest

The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Primate Research Institute, Kyoto University, 41-2 Kanrin, Inuyama, Aichi, 484-8506, Japan

    Misato Hayashi & Heung Jin Ryu

  2. Japan Monkey Centre, 26 Kanrin, Inuyama, Aichi, 484-0081, Japan

    Gaku Ohashi

Authors
  1. Misato Hayashi
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  2. Gaku Ohashi
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  3. Heung Jin Ryu
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Misato Hayashi.

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A young adult female bonobo (Ot) and her infant (Ok) stare at a trapped duiker while a second young adult female (Fk) approaches the duiker with her infant (Fa). An adult male (JR) then pulls at the snare and the duiker jumps. An adult male (GC) drags a branch along the ground. (MPG 3778 kb)

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Hayashi, M., Ohashi, G. & Ryu, H.J. Responses toward a trapped animal by wild bonobos at Wamba. Anim Cogn 15, 731–735 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10071-012-0478-x

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10071-012-0478-x

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