Female Bonobos Work Together to Rule the Troops

In mammalian social groups, males tend to dominate, but among one of our closest relatives – the bonobo – it’s females who have the upper hand. Primatologists believe the ladies get and maintain power with a simple tactic: they work together.

The scientists tracked six bonobo communities in the Democratic Republic of Congo (the only place endangered bonobos are found in the wild) over nearly 30 years to look for evidence for how females gain and accrue power. Females, they found, form coalitions.

To conduct the study, behavioral ecologist Martin Surbeck and other scientists logged thousands of hours in the Congolese jungle to observe primate power struggles. The researchers recorded 1,786 instances of a male starting a beef with a female – by acting aggressively toward her or her infant, for example, or by hoarding food. In more than 60 percent of these altercations, the female teamed up with other females to defeat the cheeky lad.

These beefs “can be very severe,” Surbeck tells the New York Times. “On a few occasions, we suspect that the male died as a result of the attack.” It’s not unusual for a male to lose a finger or a toe in these fights; in one incident, a male bonobo in the Stuttgart Zoo had his penis bitten in half while squabbling with two females. (His manhood was restored with some stitching.)

The consequences of these conflicts are lasting. Defeated males lose social rank within the troop, while females gain it, and their elevated status gives them better access to food – or to mates for their sons.

“While some people might think that patriarchy and male dominance are somehow an evolutionary trait in our species, that’s really not the case,” Surbeck says. “Bonobos are an endangered species. As our closest living relative, they help us look into our past. If we lose them, we lose a mirror for humanity.”

The research is published in the journal Communications Biology.

Photo credit: Martin Surbeck / Kokolopori Bonobo Research Project