page_title: Bonobo
section_title: Social behavior
hierarchical_section_title: Bonobo / Behavior / Social behavior
caption_attribution_description: English: A Bonobo at the San Diego Zoo "fishing" for termites. The photo was taken through glass, so if anyone wants to photoshop it to remove artifacts of the glass, please be my guest. Please attribute photo to Mike Richey.
context_page_description: The bonobo, also historically called the pygmy chimpanzee and less often, the dwarf or gracile chimpanzee, is an endangered great ape and one of the two species making up the genus Pan; the other being the common chimpanzee. Although bonobos are not a subspecies of chimpanzee, but rather a distinct species in their own right, both species are sometimes referred to collectively using the generalized term chimpanzees, or chimps. Taxonomically, the members of the chimpanzee/bonobo subtribe Panina are collectively termed panins.
  The bonobo is distinguished by relatively long legs, pink lips, dark face, tail-tuft through adulthood, and parted long hair on its head. The bonobo is found in a 500,000 km² area of the Congo Basin in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Central Africa. The species is omnivorous and inhabits primary and secondary forests, including seasonally inundated swamp forests. Because of political instability in the region and the timidity of bonobos, there has been relatively little field work done observing the species in its natural habitat.
  Along with the common chimpanzee, the bonobo is the closest extant relative to humans.
context_section_description: Many studies indicate that females have a higher social status in bonobo society. Aggressive encounters between males and females are rare, and males are tolerant of infants and juveniles. A male derives his status from the status of his mother. The mother–son bond often stays strong and continues throughout life. While social hierarchies do exist, and although the son of a high ranking female may outrank a lower female, rank plays a less prominent role than in other primate societies.
  Due to the promiscuous mating behavior of female bonobos, a male cannot be sure which offspring are his. As a result, the entirety of parental care in bonobos is assumed by the mothers. However, bonobos are not as promiscuous as chimpanzees and slightly polygamous tendencies occur, with high-ranking males enjoying greater reproductive success than low-ranking males. Unlike chimpanzees, where any male can coerce a female into mating with him, female bonobos enjoy greater sexual preferences, an advantage of female-female bonding, and actively seek out higher-ranking males. 
  Bonobo party size tends to vary because the groups exhibit a fission–fusion pattern. A community of approximately 100 will split into small groups during the day while looking for food, and then will come back together to sleep. They sleep in nests that they construct in trees.
  In captive settings, females exhibit extreme food-based aggression towards males, and forge coalitions against them to monopolize specific food items, often going as far as to mutilate any males who fail to heed their warning.
  In wild settings, however, female bonobos are not above begging males for food, suggesting sex-based hierarchy roles are less rigid than in captive colonies.
caption: Bonobo searching for termites
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