Saturday, February 28, 2009

Chimps or Bonobos.... What are we?

In class we discussed the social interactions of chimps and bonobos. It was noted that chimps are more fierce and aggressive while bonobos just settle all disputes through sexual activity. I found this very interesting when we were talking about which group of primate we came from. And yes, in science humans are listed right next to chimps on the evolutionary tree of primates. The reality of the relationship is that all three species (humans, chimps, bonobos), evolved from one common primate ancestor. An extinct ancestor at that. This would explain the crazy cocktails of behavior seen in human society.
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3 comments:

  1. Todd C.March 5, 2009 at 6:35 AM

    This is amazing. It really shows how our ancestors are very much like us and act like us. The bonobos show how humans can be very calm and relaxed and yet on the other hand the chimp side of humans show how agresssive we can get as well

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  2. danielApril 27, 2009 at 9:32 PM

    I think we get qualities from both, humans can be calm and relaxed but also aggressive, there's a lot of other things humans are too so in my opinion we could be classified to come from a lot of things besides just chimps and bonobos.

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  3. Candace DayMay 5, 2009 at 12:02 PM

    This is a very interesting observation. It really shows that no matter how superior we may seem, there are other species that are practically right alongside us in behavioral aspects.

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