Jan.
2, 2013 — You're standing in line somewhere and you decide to open a pack
of gum. Do you share a piece with the coworker standing to one side of you, or
with the stranger on the other?
Most
humans would choose the person they know first, if they shared at all.
But
bonobos, those notoriously frisky, ardently social great apes of the Congo,
prefer to share with a stranger before sharing with an animal they know. In
fact, a bonobo will invite a stranger to share a snack while leaving an
acquaintance watching helplessly from behind a barrier.
"It
seems kind of crazy to us, but bonobos prefer to share with strangers,"
said Brian Hare, a professor of evolutionary anthropology at Duke University.
"They're trying to extend their social network." And they apparently
value that more than maintaining the friendships they already have.
To
measure this willingness to share, Hare and graduate student Jingzhi Tan ran a
series of experiments with bonobos living in the Lola ya Bonobo sanctuary in
Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of Congo. The experiments involved piles of food
and enclosures that the test subjects were able to unlock and open. Tan and
Hare describe their work in a paper in the Jan. 2, 2013 edition of PLOS
ONE.
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