Sullivan Photo-Craig Stanford A group of chimpanzees at Gombe National Park, in Tanzania.
New findings reveal that chimps often act manipulatively, pursuing selfish goals.
After living for much of the past four years among the chimpanzees of Tanzania's Gombe National Park, anthropologist Craig Stanford believes he may have discovered a model for the origins of human sexual politics. It's not a pretty picture. Stanford has found that male chimpanzees hunt smaller animals in order to obtain meat as bribes for sexually receptive females and political allies. Stanford, an assistant professor of anthropology, believes the earliest human beings probably behaved in the same way as these chimpanzees, who are our closest living relatives in the animal kingdom. His observation builds on mounting evidence pointing to other lifestyle similarities.