Bonobo
Pan paniscus
— Where the name comes from
Pan is the Greek god of the woods, half man and half goat; paniscus is the diminutive, “little Pan”, to set it apart from the chimpanzee. “Bonobo” may come from a garbling of Bolobo, a Congolese river town, which ended up by mistake on a crate of shipped specimens. With the chimpanzee it is our closest living relative.
— Facts
- Group
- Mammals · Mammalia
- Order
- Primates
- Habitat
- Humid lowland rainforest
- Range
- A single area south of the Congo river, in the Democratic Republic of the Congo
- Size
- 70–83 cm of body, 30–45 kg
- Diet
- Omnivore — mostly fruit, with leaves, seeds and small prey
- Lifespan
- 40 years
— Characteristics
- 01
It shares nearly 99% of its DNA with us, as the chimpanzee does.
- 02
It lives in matriarchal societies where female bonds count for more than male strength.
- 03
It walks upright more often than the other great apes.
— What sets it apart
The bonobo settles conflicts with sex rather than violence: tension over food, questions of rank, reconciliation after a quarrel almost all pass through sexual contact, between individuals of every sex and age. It is the mirror image of the chimpanzee, which solves the same problems with aggression. Two species nearly identical to us have taken opposite roads on the matter of living together.
