Why do bonobos kiss

Although we now know how this happens--through the use of sexual contact and grooming--we do not yet know why bonobos and chimpanzees differ in this respect. The answer may lie in the different ecological environments of bonobos and chimpanzees--such as the abundance and quality of food in the forest. But it is uncertain if such explanations will suffice. Bonobo society is, however, not only female-centered but also appears to be female-dominated. Bonobo specialists, while long suspecting such a reality, had been reluctant to make the controversial claim.

But in , at the 14th Congress of the International Primatological Society in Strasbourg, investigators of both captive and wild bonobos presented data that left little doubt about the issue. Amy R. Parish of the University of California, Davis, reported on food competition in identical groups one adult male and two adult females of chimpanzees and bonobos at the Stuttgart Zoo.

Honey was provided in a termite hill from which it could be extracted by dipping sticks into a small hole. As soon as honey was made available, the male chimpanzee would make a charging display through the enclosure and claim everything for himself.

Only when his appetite was satisfied would he let the females fish for honey. In the bonobo group, it was the females that approached the honey first. After having engaged in some GG rubbing, they would feed together, taking turns with virtually no competition between them.

The male might make as many charging displays as he wanted; the females were not intimidated and ignored the commotion. Observers at the Belgian animal park of Planckendael, which currently has the most naturalistic bonobo colony, reported similar findings.

If a male bonobo tried to harass a female, all females would band together to chase him off. Because females appeared more successful in dominating males when they were together than on their own, their close association and frequent genital rubbing may represent an alliance.

Females may bond so as to outcompete members of the individually stronger sex. The fact that they manage to do so not only in captivity is evident from zoologist Takeshi Furuichis summary of the relation between the sexes at Wamba, where bonobos are enticed out of the forest with sugarcane.

Males usually appeared at the feeding site first, but they surrendered preferred positions when the females appeared. It seemed that males appeared first not because they were dominant, but because they had to feed before the arrival of females, Furuichi reported at Strasbourg.

It has been speculated by anthropologists--including C. Owen Lovejoy of Kent State University and Helen Fisher of Rutgers University--that sex is partially separated from reproduction in our species because it serves to cement mutually profitable relationships between men and women. The human females capacity to mate throughout her cycle and her strong sex drive allow her to exchange sex for male commitment and paternal care, thus giving rise to the nuclear family.

This arrangement is thought to be favored by natural selection because it allows women to raise more offspring than they could if they were on their own. Although bonobos clearly do not establish the exclusive heterosexual bonds characteristic of our species, their behavior does fit important elements of this model. A female bonobo shows extended receptivity and uses sex to obtain a males favors when--usually because of youth--she is too low in social status to dominate him.

At the San Diego Zoo, I observed that if Loretta was in a sexually attractive state, she would not hesitate to approach the adult male, Vernon, if he had food. Presenting herself to Vernon, she would mate with him and make high-pitched food calls while taking over his entire bundle of branches and leaves. When Loretta had no genital swelling, she would wait until Vernon was ready to share. Primatologist Suehisa Kuroda reports similar exchanges at Wamba: A young female approached a male, who was eating sugarcane.

They copulated in short order, whereupon she took one of the two canes held by him and left. Despite such quid pro quo between the sexes, there are no indications that bonobos form humanlike nuclear families. The burden of raising offspring appears to rest entirely on the females shoulders. In fact, nuclear families are probably incompatible with the diverse use of sex found in bonobos. If our ancestors started out with a sex life similar to that of bonobos, the evolution of the family would have required dramatic change.

Human family life implies paternal investment, which is unlikely to develop unless males can be reasonably certain that they are caring for their own, not someone elses, offspring. Bonobo society lacks any such guarantee, but humans protect the integrity of their family units through all kinds of moral restrictions and taboos.

Thus, although our species is characterized by an extraordinary interest in sex, there are no societies in which people engage in it at the drop of a hat or a cardboard box, as the case may be. A sense of shame and a desire for domestic privacy are typical human concepts related to the evolution and cultural bolstering of the family. Yet no degree of moralizing can make sex disappear from every realm of human life that does not relate to the nuclear family.

The bonobos behavioral peculiarities may help us understand the role of sex and may have serious implications for models of human society. Just imagine that we had never heard of chimpanzees or baboons and had known bonobos first.

We would at present most likely believe that early hominids lived in female-centered societies, in which sex served important social functions and in which warfare was rare or absent. In the end, perhaps the most successful reconstruction of our past will be based not on chimpanzees or even on bonobos but on a three-way comparison of chimpanzees, bonobos and humans. After a six-year study of the chimpanzee colony at the Arnhem Zoo, he moved to the U.

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Scenarios play over in our heads, classic questions and worries bombard us. Will she like me? Does he share the same interests? Will my mum be watching us have sex? But new research shows that for bonobos, sex really is often a family affair. Along with chimpanzees Pan troglodytes , bonobos Pan paniscus are our closest living relatives. Operating in female-led social systems , bonobos are capable of showing a wide range of what were long held as human-specific feelings and emotions, such as sensitivity , patience, compassion, kindness, empathy and altruism.

Love snuggling up to a sweetie and smooching? That's romantic, but—spoiler alert—kissing can be a disgusting and dangerous activity. While kissing, couples exchange 9 milliliters of water, 0. Many pathological organisms can be transmitted through mouth-to-mouth contact, including those that cause colds and other respiratory viruses, herpes simplex, tuberculosis, syphilis and strep. Humans are biologically driven to push their faces together and rub noses or touch lips or tongues.

At its most basic, kissing is a mating behavior, encoded in our genes.