#bonobos — Public Fediverse posts

🦧 New study on #bonobo #SocialBehavior: Arias-Vélez et al. show that #bonobos actively intervene in #SocialInteractions to enforce group norms and reduce conflict. Rather than reacting only to direct threats, bystanders often stepped in during socially disruptive situations, suggesting a form of third-party social regulation resembling proto-norm enforcement.

📝 https://critica.filosoficas.unam.mx/index.php/critica/article/view/1788 (https://doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.ads4414)

#Behavior #Ethology #NaturalisticNeuroscience #Primatology

🦧 New study on #bonobo #SocialBehavior: Arias-Vélez et al. show that #bonobos actively intervene in #SocialInteractions to enforce group norms and reduce conflict. Rather than reacting only to direct threats, bystanders often stepped in during socially disruptive situations, suggesting a form of third-party social regulation resembling proto-norm enforcement.

📝 https://critica.filosoficas.unam.mx/index.php/critica/article/view/1788 (https://doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.ads4414)

#Behavior #Ethology #NaturalisticNeuroscience #Primatology

🦧 New study on #bonobo #SocialBehavior: Arias-Vélez et al. show that #bonobos actively intervene in #SocialInteractions to enforce group norms and reduce conflict. Rather than reacting only to direct threats, bystanders often stepped in during socially disruptive situations, suggesting a form of third-party social regulation resembling proto-norm enforcement.

📝 https://critica.filosoficas.unam.mx/index.php/critica/article/view/1788 (https://doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.ads4414)

#Behavior #Ethology #NaturalisticNeuroscience #Primatology

🦧 New study on #bonobo #SocialBehavior: Arias-Vélez et al. show that #bonobos actively intervene in #SocialInteractions to enforce group norms and reduce conflict. Rather than reacting only to direct threats, bystanders often stepped in during socially disruptive situations, suggesting a form of third-party social regulation resembling proto-norm enforcement.

📝 https://critica.filosoficas.unam.mx/index.php/critica/article/view/1788 (https://doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.ads4414)

#Behavior #Ethology #NaturalisticNeuroscience #Primatology

🦧 New study on #bonobo #SocialBehavior: Arias-Vélez et al. show that #bonobos actively intervene in #SocialInteractions to enforce group norms and reduce conflict. Rather than reacting only to direct threats, bystanders often stepped in during socially disruptive situations, suggesting a form of third-party social regulation resembling proto-norm enforcement.

📝 https://critica.filosoficas.unam.mx/index.php/critica/article/view/1788 (https://doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.ads4414)

#Behavior #Ethology #NaturalisticNeuroscience #Primatology

Monke Compass

https://piefed.social/c/politicalcompassmemes/p/2038369/monke-compass

#News: Delightful #bonobos enjoy having tea parties, loved-up #gorillas enjoy kissing and #chimpanzees have a fascination for crystals. These wonderful beings are similar to us. Protect them! #BoycottPalmOil #Boycott4Wildlife https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2026/apr/23/apes-behaviour-bonobo-chimpanzee-humans-science-aoe?utm_source=mastodon&utm_medium=Palm+Oil+Detectives&utm_campaign=publer
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2026/apr/23/apes-behaviour-bonobo-chimpanzee-humans-science-aoe?utm_source=mastodon&utm_medium=Palm+Oil+Detectives&utm_campaign=publer

#bonobos #AbstractThought

"Evidence for representation of pretend objects by Kanzi, a language-trained bonobo

Classic childhood activities like tea parties and sword fights with sticks demonstrate the human ability to generate secondary representations, conditions we know aren’t 'real' but that we nonetheless engage with. Whether nonhuman animals are capable of these types of representations has been difficult to test. Bastos and Krupenye studied a language-trained bonobo, Kanzi, to see whether he could understand and engage with pretend conditions. Across three different experiments, Kanzi was able to identify pretend objects, demonstrating that he could create a secondary representation and showing that humans are not alone in this ability.

Secondary representations enable our minds to depart from the here-and-now and generate imaginary, hypothetical, or alternate possibilities that are decoupled from reality, supporting many of our richest cognitive capacities such as mental-state attribution, simulation of possible futures, and pretense. We present experimental evidence that a nonhuman primate can represent pretend objects. Kanzi, a lexigram-trained bonobo, correctly identified the location of pretend objects (e.g., ‘juice' poured between empty containers), in response to verbal prompts in scaffolded pretense interactions. Across three experiments, we conceptually replicated this finding and excluded key alternative explanations. Our findings suggest that the capacity to form secondary representations of pretend objects is within the cognitive potential of, at least, an enculturated ape and likely dates back 6 to 9 million years, to our common evolutionary ancestors."

https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.adz0743

#bonobos #AbstractThought

"Evidence for representation of pretend objects by Kanzi, a language-trained bonobo

Classic childhood activities like tea parties and sword fights with sticks demonstrate the human ability to generate secondary representations, conditions we know aren’t 'real' but that we nonetheless engage with. Whether nonhuman animals are capable of these types of representations has been difficult to test. Bastos and Krupenye studied a language-trained bonobo, Kanzi, to see whether he could understand and engage with pretend conditions. Across three different experiments, Kanzi was able to identify pretend objects, demonstrating that he could create a secondary representation and showing that humans are not alone in this ability.

Secondary representations enable our minds to depart from the here-and-now and generate imaginary, hypothetical, or alternate possibilities that are decoupled from reality, supporting many of our richest cognitive capacities such as mental-state attribution, simulation of possible futures, and pretense. We present experimental evidence that a nonhuman primate can represent pretend objects. Kanzi, a lexigram-trained bonobo, correctly identified the location of pretend objects (e.g., ‘juice' poured between empty containers), in response to verbal prompts in scaffolded pretense interactions. Across three experiments, we conceptually replicated this finding and excluded key alternative explanations. Our findings suggest that the capacity to form secondary representations of pretend objects is within the cognitive potential of, at least, an enculturated ape and likely dates back 6 to 9 million years, to our common evolutionary ancestors."

https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.adz0743

#bonobos #AbstractThought

"Evidence for representation of pretend objects by Kanzi, a language-trained bonobo

Classic childhood activities like tea parties and sword fights with sticks demonstrate the human ability to generate secondary representations, conditions we know aren’t 'real' but that we nonetheless engage with. Whether nonhuman animals are capable of these types of representations has been difficult to test. Bastos and Krupenye studied a language-trained bonobo, Kanzi, to see whether he could understand and engage with pretend conditions. Across three different experiments, Kanzi was able to identify pretend objects, demonstrating that he could create a secondary representation and showing that humans are not alone in this ability.

Secondary representations enable our minds to depart from the here-and-now and generate imaginary, hypothetical, or alternate possibilities that are decoupled from reality, supporting many of our richest cognitive capacities such as mental-state attribution, simulation of possible futures, and pretense. We present experimental evidence that a nonhuman primate can represent pretend objects. Kanzi, a lexigram-trained bonobo, correctly identified the location of pretend objects (e.g., ‘juice' poured between empty containers), in response to verbal prompts in scaffolded pretense interactions. Across three experiments, we conceptually replicated this finding and excluded key alternative explanations. Our findings suggest that the capacity to form secondary representations of pretend objects is within the cognitive potential of, at least, an enculturated ape and likely dates back 6 to 9 million years, to our common evolutionary ancestors."

https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.adz0743

#bonobos #AbstractThought

"Evidence for representation of pretend objects by Kanzi, a language-trained bonobo

Classic childhood activities like tea parties and sword fights with sticks demonstrate the human ability to generate secondary representations, conditions we know aren’t 'real' but that we nonetheless engage with. Whether nonhuman animals are capable of these types of representations has been difficult to test. Bastos and Krupenye studied a language-trained bonobo, Kanzi, to see whether he could understand and engage with pretend conditions. Across three different experiments, Kanzi was able to identify pretend objects, demonstrating that he could create a secondary representation and showing that humans are not alone in this ability.

Secondary representations enable our minds to depart from the here-and-now and generate imaginary, hypothetical, or alternate possibilities that are decoupled from reality, supporting many of our richest cognitive capacities such as mental-state attribution, simulation of possible futures, and pretense. We present experimental evidence that a nonhuman primate can represent pretend objects. Kanzi, a lexigram-trained bonobo, correctly identified the location of pretend objects (e.g., ‘juice' poured between empty containers), in response to verbal prompts in scaffolded pretense interactions. Across three experiments, we conceptually replicated this finding and excluded key alternative explanations. Our findings suggest that the capacity to form secondary representations of pretend objects is within the cognitive potential of, at least, an enculturated ape and likely dates back 6 to 9 million years, to our common evolutionary ancestors."

https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.adz0743

#bonobos #chimpanzees #gender #aggression

"Despite their contrasting reputations, bonobos and chimpanzees show similar levels of aggression in zoos.

Chimpanzees have a reputation for being aggressive, while bonobos are often seen as their peaceful counterparts. This contrast has frequently been used to explain different sides of human nature. However, a new study by Utrecht University behavioural biologists Emile Bryon, Edwin van Leeuwen, Tom Roth and international colleagues shows that, in zoos, chimpanzees are not more aggressive than bonobos. The study was published today in the scientific journal *Science Advances*.

The team of researchers compared the occurrence of aggressive behaviours in 22 zoo-housed groups of chimpanzees and bonobos. While no difference was found in overall aggression, the team did find that the two sister species differ in how the aggression is distributed. Bryon: 'In chimpanzees, aggression mainly comes from males and is directed at everyone. In bonobos, aggression comes from everyone but is mostly directed at males.'”

https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/1119513

Pongoland Leipzig: 25 Jahre Primatenforschung

Leipzig vernetzt die Welt der Primatenforschung „Dass wir Forschung, Tierwohl und Transparenz für die Besucherinnen und Besucher so…
#Leipzig #Deutschland #Deutsch #DE #Schlagzeilen #Headlines #Nachrichten #News #Europe #Europa #EU #Bonobos #Germany #Gorillas #Kognition #leipzig #Menschenaffen #MPI-EVA #Orang-Utans #Pongoland #Primatenforschung #Sachsen #Schimpansen #WKPRC #ZooLeipzig
https://www.europesays.com/de/926864/

So much for #hippie #bonobos beware #fearsome #females

https://www.livescience.com/animals/primates/bonobos-are-just-as-aggressive-as-chimps-but-theres-a-key-difference-the-female-bonobos

#Bonobos are the 'make love not war' #ape 🩷🦍 One #study found #bonobo mothers who meddle in their son's sex lives help them father children. Protect these precious intelligent beings #BoycottPalmOil 🌴🪔🙊⛔️ #Boycott4Wildlife @palmoildetect.bsky.social https://palmoildetectives.com/2022/03/27/bonobo-mothers-meddle-in-their-sons-sex-lives-making-them-three-times-more-likely-to-father-children/?utm_source=mastodon&utm_medium=Palm+Oil+Detectives&utm_campaign=publer

Blissful #bonobos resolve conflict in (mostly) peaceful ways. Maybe they can inspire #human #democracies to be fairer, kinder and more just? Help remarkable beings to survive #Boycottpalmoil 🌴🔥🩸🚜❌ #Boycott4Wildlife #apes #primates @palmoildetect https://palmoildetectives.com/2022/02/20/bonobos-can-inspire-us-to-make-our-democracies-more-peaceful/?utm_source=mastodon&utm_medium=Palm+Oil+Detectives&utm_campaign=publer

Der Mensch: Ein Affe mit einem strukturellen Gewaltproblem

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JaKK-SO-PDU

#WirGruppe #Ingroup #Outgroup #Anthropologie #Anthropology #Primatologie #Affenforschung #Primatology #Bonobos #Schimpansen #Frieden #Kriege #Kämpfe #Grausamkeit #Brutalität

Forschende (u.a. der #UniLeipzig) haben ein bestehendes Kodiersystem für menschliche #Mimik so angepasst, dass sich auch die #Gesichtsausdrücke von #Bonobos analysieren lassen. Ihre Forschungsergebnisse bestätigen, dass die Affen über ein Repertoire von 28 verschiedenen Gesichtsbewegungen verfügen, die durch 22 spezifische Muskelbewegungen verursacht werden. Dadurch kann man besser verstehen, wie diese #Menschenaffen miteinander kommunizieren.
https://www.uni-leipzig.de/newsdetail/artikel/forschende-koennen-gesichtsausdruecke-von-bonobo-affen-genau-analysieren-2025-06-17
Fotos: Paul Kuchenbuch

Forschende (u.a. der #UniLeipzig) haben ein bestehendes Kodiersystem für menschliche #Mimik so angepasst, dass sich auch die #Gesichtsausdrücke von #Bonobos analysieren lassen. Ihre Forschungsergebnisse bestätigen, dass die Affen über ein Repertoire von 28 verschiedenen Gesichtsbewegungen verfügen, die durch 22 spezifische Muskelbewegungen verursacht werden. Dadurch kann man besser verstehen, wie diese #Menschenaffen miteinander kommunizieren.
https://www.uni-leipzig.de/newsdetail/artikel/forschende-koennen-gesichtsausdruecke-von-bonobo-affen-genau-analysieren-2025-06-17
Fotos: Paul Kuchenbuch

Les #bonobos sont capables de #phrases #complexes presque comme les #humains

https://www.courrierinternational.com/article/les-bonobos-sont-capables-de-phrases-complexes-presque-comme-les-humains_229535

Les #bonobos sont capables de #phrases #complexes presque comme les #humains

https://www.courrierinternational.com/article/les-bonobos-sont-capables-de-phrases-complexes-presque-comme-les-humains_229535

Les #bonobos sont capables de #phrases #complexes presque comme les #humains

https://www.courrierinternational.com/article/les-bonobos-sont-capables-de-phrases-complexes-presque-comme-les-humains_229535

Les #bonobos sont capables de #phrases #complexes presque comme les #humains www.courrierinternational.com/article/les-...

Les bonobos sont capables de p...

#Kanzi #bonobos #personhood

"Kanzi has died at the age of 44. The iconic bonobo reshaped our understanding of ape intelligence, challenging long-held beliefs about what separates humans from our closest living relatives.

(. . .)

Koko the gorilla and Washoe the chimp communicated via sign language, but Kanzi took communication to a new level, demonstrating a profound capacity to communicate via symbols and comprehend verbal English.

(. . .)

Famously, Kanzi was also a gamer. I first learned of Kanzi in 2006 when I spotted a bootlegged NHK Youtube video showing a bonobo playing Pac-Man with both proficiency and delight. I corresponded with Savage-Rumbaugh about the video, and she told me: 'This film is so compelling and there is so much of it (over 300 hours) in so many different natural circumstances, that any thought that these clips represent anything other than their real competencies, become unreasonable.'"

https://gizmodo.com/rip-kanzi-the-bonobo-who-mastered-language-and-minecraft-20005790

Les #singes #bonobos ont un super- #pouvoir : ils #savent quand ils #savent #quelque #chose que nous #ne #savons #pas

Plus évolués que #Trump #Heilon #Musk ?

https://www.futura-sciences.com/planete/actualites/intelligence-animale-ces-singes-ont-super-pouvoir-ils-savent-ils-savent-quelque-chose-nous-ne-savons-pas-119377/

Les #singes #bonobos ont un super- #pouvoir : ils #savent quand ils #savent #quelque #chose que nous #ne #savons #pas

Plus évolués que #Trump #Heilon #Musk ?

https://www.futura-sciences.com/planete/actualites/intelligence-animale-ces-singes-ont-super-pouvoir-ils-savent-ils-savent-quelque-chose-nous-ne-savons-pas-119377/

Les #singes #bonobos ont un super- #pouvoir : ils #savent quand ils #savent #quelque #chose que nous #ne #savons #pas

Plus évolués que #Trump #Heilon #Musk ?

https://www.futura-sciences.com/planete/actualites/intelligence-animale-ces-singes-ont-super-pouvoir-ils-savent-ils-savent-quelque-chose-nous-ne-savons-pas-119377/

Les #singes #bonobos ont un super- #pouvoir : ils #savent quand ils #savent #quelque #chose que nous #ne #savons #pas

Plus évolués que #Trump #Heilon #Musk ?

https://www.futura-sciences.com/planete/actualites/intelligence-animale-ces-singes-ont-super-pouvoir-ils-savent-ils-savent-quelque-chose-nous-ne-savons-pas-119377/

#Regenwald.org #Gorillas, #Bonobos, #Okapi - die Demokratische Republik #Kongo ist eines der Länder mit der größten #Artenvielfalt der Welt. Viele Einheimische kämpfen für #Naturschutz und #Menschenrechte. In der Folge werden sie schikaniert und strafrechtlich verfolgt. Im Osten des Kongo haben Rebellen der #M23 die Stadt #Goma eingenommen. https://www.regenwald.org/petitionen/1299/kongos-waelder-werden-abgeholzt-schuetzt-die-naturschuetzer

Inspo de vestimenta completa + 18 selecciones de ofertas de J.Crew, Bonobos y Huckberry · Presentación #Bonobos #completa #Huckberry #Inspo #Introducción #J.Crew #ofertas #selecciones #vestimenta #ButterWord #Spanish_News Comenta tu opinión 👇
https://butterword.com/inspo-de-vestimenta-completa-18-selecciones-de-ofertas-de-j-crew-bonobos-y-huckberry-%c2%b7-presentacion/?feed_id=3720&_unique_id=67977816a22f1

Hot off the press! Lind, Ghirlanda and Enquist, the authors of the above-mentioned book ⬆️, have now published their study on #SequenceLearning in #bonobos , showing that the #GreatApes struggle to tell short sequences apart https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0290546: https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0290546 We are currently conducting a study on #Chimpanzees at the moment and hope to be able to contribute to the discussion soon.

2) Die wenig sanftmütige Nachricht: #Bonobos haben einen großen Fressfeind, und der heißt Mensch. Das Fleisch der Primaten landet sogar in Restaurants. #Bushmeat gilt als Delikatesse & wird teuer verkauft. Wir müssen was tun, ihr könnt helfen: https://www.wwf.de/spenden-helfen/fuer-ein-projekt-spenden/bonobos

Bonobos can inspire us to make our democracies more peaceful

#Bonobos, sometimes called the “forgotten #ape” due to their recent discovery and small numbers, titillate the democrat’s imagination. Before the 1970s, certain primatologists thought bonobos were strange #chimpanzees because females govern in this primate society.Frans de Waal, the primatologist and popular writer, has done much to explain the fascinating lives of these “peace-loving #apes” and how they are changing the story of human evolution. Bonobos are unique among apes for how they settle day-to-day conflicts. Personalities and social standing are evident in their society. Squabbles are frequent within or between groups. Bonobos defuse the potentially violent tension in these conflicts through quick bursts of sex, mutual grooming, hugs and kisses, and mimicking the sounds each other makes. Help these remarkable intelligent beings survive when you #BoycottPalmOil #Boycott4Wildlife

Blissful #bonobos resolve conflict in (mostly) peaceful ways. Maybe they can inspire #human #democracies to be fairer, kinder and more just? Help these remarkable beings to survive #Boycottpalmoil 🌴🔥🩸🚜❌ #Boycott4Wildlife #apes #primates @palmoildetect https://palmoildetectives.com/2022/02/20/bonobos-can-inspire-us-to-make-our-democracies-more-peaceful/

We can see reflections of ourselves – the good, the bad and the ugly – in bonobos, and in other apes too.

https://youtu.be/gDCBovxoEDk

The trick is to use intimate, gentle, genuine techniques to find common ground with one’s opponent. It’s the bonobos’ way to say “it’s alright” and to repair any emotional sores from the dispute. It doesn’t always happen this way, especially between rival groups, but violence is the exception to the rule.

Inspirations

We value peace today, so the discovery of the bonobo gives us hope that Homo sapiens aren’t naturally sadistic terrors kept in check only by the power of authority or the divine, the fear of the afterlife.

Gorillas, another close relative, offer inspiration too. While a very large male protects most small groups, he’s more bodyguard than despot. Gorillas reach decisions through co-operation between the sexes.

Baboons also offer a counter view to our supposed nasty and brutish inner nature. In a troop of hamadryas or olive baboons you’d soon be able to spot the stronger individuals. And you might assume they simply call the shots: only they don’t.

Baboons have a more delicate form of collective decision-making. This involves sitting in the right place and waiting to see where a majority develops. In this way, more than a few individuals share leadership.

Now we come to chimpanzees, the species that has been most influential in how we picture the earliest human behaviour. They are patriarchal, hierarchical, constantly scheming to get ahead in rank and sometimes shockingly violent. Yet, if the times are good (food’s abundant), they can be consensual, mellow and peaceful.

Like the bonobos, chimps try to repair emotional damage after a fight because the group has to work or else everyone’s survival is at risk.

That said, bonobos, gorillas, baboons and chimpanzees aren’t a reflection of our past. As Frans de Waal and science journalist Virginia Morell observe, these species have been evolving alongside us since we all split from our common ancestor. Looking at them isn’t the same as looking back.

However, we can relate to the behaviours in these species – we can see ourselves in them. Perhaps, we wonder, we’ve always had the capacity for peace and violence; we’ve always lived in the political spectrum between violent autocracy and peaceful democracy.

Our species is certainly trying to strengthen the latter now. Perhaps the bonobos, or the other apes, can help us do better by inspiring us to think differently.

Imagine if we could stop being violent to one another. The violence that democrats living in democracies commit online or in person, often in public among strangers, limits if not wastes our capacity to be peaceful in our everyday lives.

Let’s say a fight starts over a parking space. You saw it first, had your blinker on to “claim it”, when that omfg no-you-didn’t creature of a moron steals it. I’ve reason to believe that, when slighted in this way, most of us want to punch this stranger in the face or trash their car.

Trying to find common ground with them then and there seems bizarre. Stranger still is to entertain the thought that maybe you and the spot-thief might then give each other a hug or a smooch, mount each other for a while, run your fingers through one another’s hair and say: “You know what, it’s all right, have a nice day”.

I play to the absurd here because I’m not arguing that we should try to perfectly replicate the way bonobos avoid violence. Echoing a point that Laurence Whitehead once made, we shouldn’t confuse inspiration with replication.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X9BFjr_x0vU

We should rather try to draw inspiration from the bonobos to enrich our own practices, to enhance today’s human democracies. We might do equally well to dream about rhesus monkeys and their aversion to inequality, or spider monkeys and their patient if not wondrously just lives.

These primates place emphasis on avoiding violence and inequality because peace keeps them working together. It helps them survive.

And that’s important for us: peace and social cohesion are the legs our democracies strive to stand on.

The opposite, violence and social division, beckons to the Beetlejuice of regimes: benevolent authoritarianism, that hated but necessary stabiliser of states when times are bad.

It’s crucial to remember that avoiding violence builds trust and confidence in the group and between groups. It’s what the bonobos do so well. Yet in our societies we’re still struggling to use words and care instead of fists, guns, mines and bombs.

Political theorist John Keane once alluded: the future if not quality of democracy depends on our ability to exchange violence for peace. For the sake of our democracies, we need to be able to make this exchange, from those everyday moments in the carpark to those times in the lives of nations when diplomacy gives way to conflict.

Lessons

It’s not simply the normative visions of a democracy changed that the examples of non-human life offer. We can learn from the down-to-earth, concrete and special techniques that non-humans use to make decisions.

The process of evolution creates replicating systems – ones that work. It happens simply through the genes that survive millions of years of trial and error. As a result, the lives of many non-humans may offer more than a few masterclasses in social success.

Take the European honeybee, for example. In his book, Honeybee Democracy, Thomas Seeley explains how bees make the life-or-death decision on where to build their next hive.

Once a hive reaches capacity – no room is left for making more bees or honey – the existing queen and most of the bees move out. They must start a new hive.

It’s down to the oldest forager bees, which usually account for 3% to 5% of the worker bees (talk about representation), to get more than half their family – potentially upwards of 30,000 individuals – out of the hive. Once this massive swarm is out, the elder bees direct it to cluster somewhere around the queen until they find a suitable site for the new hive.

At this point, the 1000 or so elder bees, who’ve swapped from food foragers to house scouts, travel several kilometres in all directions. They’re looking for that perfect site.

Bees are choosy. The hive site must satisfy several criteria. These include the location and diameter of the entrance (it’s important no rain can get in and that there is only one entrance); whether it faces the sun (this keeps the hive warmer in winter); the height above the ground (the higher the better to deter predators); if it’s in a tree (trees are preferred); and the available space. If it’s too big, the bees will freeze in winter. Too small, and they won’t have enough food to last through the cold months.

Choosing the wrong hive site might mean the human equivalent of a small town dying.

Honeybees evolved decision-making techniques because so much is riding on the decision elder bees make on behalf of the whole. Seeley thinks we should be studying and learning from these techniques.

When a scout bee returns to the swarm after finding a site that ticks all the boxes she lets the freak out in her waggle dance. Her dance tells other scout bees she’s on to something good.

However, rather than accepting the force of her presentation (charisma you might say), each scout flies off to the site that got the scout dancing with excitement to independently verify her claim.

If it really is the promised land, each scout returns to replicate the dance of the first. If not, the scouts will see who else is dancing, independently verify their claim, and potentially follow their dance.

Once around 70% of the scouts are broadcasting the same site, the other scouts stop advertising alternatives and join the majority.

So the decision’s made. It’s time to rouse the 30,000 into the air and for the scouts to direct the swarm to the agreed site.

The independent verification bees use to make high-quality decisions speaks directly to the problems we face in democratic assemblies. The ability of charismatic speech to sway others without proving the evidence in the speaker’s argument, the entrenchment of factions around shared values and not evidence, the capitulation of younger or less knowledgeable individuals confronted by older experts, and so on, all point to our difficulties in using evidence-based decision-making. https://www.youtube.com/embed/JnnjY823e-w?wmode=transparent&start=0 Tom Seeley explains how swarming honeybees choose a new home.

Obviously we’re not bees. We’re value-laden and sometimes irrational primates with our own host of problems specific to our species.

Even if we perfectly executed the bees’ independent verification technique, a person could very well say: “No, regardless of the evidence I’ve just verified which is contrary to my original position, I will maintain that wind mills sour cow’s milk, or that my kids don’t need vaccinating, or that climate change isn’t a threat.”

In fact, majority decision-making is, out of all the available democratic decision-making systems, the least preferable for many of us. People like reaching consensus and they like proportionality because it’s fair. And a lot of the decisions assemblies make aren’t questions of life or death, so we don’t really feel like there’s that much at stake.

That said, seeking to learn from bees, and to reflect on what they do so well and what we don’t do that well, generates space for tinkering with the “how”. It creates an opportunity to alter our democratic procedures for the better. We could do this, for example, by establishing a standard practice of independent verification – one that works for us – before an assembly makes a decision.

“Enrolling in nature’s masterclasses”, provided free to us by evolution, doesn’t put our human democracies to question. Rather, it gives us the chance to strengthen them, refine them, make them better.

Analogies

Lastly, by drawing comparisons between non-human and human life we can make analogies about democracy’s issues.

Look, for instance, to the parasites found in nature. There are blood-suckers of blood-suckers (a midge that drinks the blood from a mosquito that just drank it from you), wasps that inject their eggs into other insects, body-snatching fungi, mind-altering protozoans and murderously dishonest amoebas. They might remind democrats of the perils of individuals who manipulate and use democracy for their own ends.

The strangleweed, Cuscuta pentagona, is a parasitic plant. From the moment its seed has sprouted, the seedling “feels” around for a different plant. It’s going to live off this plant.

Once in range, the strangleweed takes a gentle hold of its victim and pierces the host’s stem with a haustorium (effectively a pointy green syringe). It does this not only to drink the host’s sugars but also to swap genetic information (RNA) with it.

Researchers think that C. pentagona reads the host’s genetic information to gain an understanding of its victim’s condition. But the strangleweed also sends its own genetic information to the host, like a Trojan horse designed to keep the victim from realising it’s being used.

Since at least the times of usurious monarchs or the entrenchment of transnational capital, democrats have made the point about parasitic elites.

The transnational capitalist class roam this world looking for the best hosts to do their business with. They find their way past barriers to take information from sovereign states, send reassurances to them, and then begin the process of extracting wealth from them to maintain their status as this world’s first global oligarchs.

I think here in particular of the dealings between mining companies and small cash-poor states. Like the strangleweed’s initial wandering tentacle, the company sends its agents to find where it can get a grip on the host.

The company uses charm offensives, lobbyists and sometimes bribes to transfuse information between it and the host. The two become a hybridised one. The company releases public relations information to keep the host satiated if not to massage it into accepting that the company is here to stay – that is, until the sugars run out.

The relationship between a multinational company and a sovereign state can be, like the relationship between the strangleweed and its victim, asymmetrical. On both sides of the analogy the parasite lives at the expense of the host, which is left almost powerless to defend itself.

Now, we should recognise that this baldly polemical interpretation of multinational companies and their governors doesn’t mean they’re no different from a parasitic plant, nor do they function for the same reason as the strangleweed, whose aim is reproduction.

What we get from this analogy is, instead, a reflection from reality’s broken mirror. Looking at the strangleweed and then to the transnational capitalist class creates a snapshot perception, an imperfect but still handy image, for the democrat to use.

Extinction, the death of possibilities

As writer Elizabeth Kolbert says in her own way: with each extinction of a non-human species we see ourselves further ruined.

Earth is home to at least one million species, and likely more. Many species make collective decisions, solve problems together and survive as a group. Losing a living species to extinction also means, from a selfishly human perspective, losing a potential opportunity to improve today’s democracies by the inspirations, lessons and analogies that only the evolution of other life forms can impart to us.

Non-humans evolved their own techniques and behaviours – which we can make sense of using words from the vocabulary of democracy – because they work for them. It’s 100% pragmatic. Nature’s tool chest, you might say.

Admittedly, these tools may not be fit for our purposes. After all, we aren’t bonobos, bees or parasitic plants. But it’s also fair to say that we’d be rash not to try to find help in them, especially if enriching our democratic practices in this way could help solve some of the problems confronting us.

Here we can say that our destruction of non-humans is destroying a part of ourselves, of our democracies’ hope of reaching their fuller potential. Perhaps, out of respect for their existence and our own, it’s time to include non-humans in that all-too-human affair we call democracy.

You can read parts one and two of the essay here.

Jean-Paul Gagnon, Assistant Professor in Politics, University of Canberra

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

#animalBehaviour #AnimalBiodiversityNews #animalCommunication #animalExtinction #animalIntelligence #animalRights #Ape #apes #bonobo #Bonobos #Boycott4wildlife #BoycottPalmOil #Chimpanzees #democracies #democracy #human #Mammal #Primate #primates #Primatologist #primatology #sentience

Humans and Bonobos Share Contagious Yawn Behaviour

Most of us have experienced the overwhelming urge to yawn in response to another person yawning – but we’re not the only species to do this. Research published in PeerJ shows that bonobos – our closest evolutionary cousins – also experience “yawn contagion”. Similarly to how yawning occurs in human beings, the effects of yawn contagion in bonobos is influenced by the quality of relationships shared between individuals.

The tendency for humans to mirror the behaviours and emotions of another – sometimes referred to as “emotional contagion” – is also thought to reflect our heightened capacity for empathy. Help all non-human primates to survive extinction and be #Vegan #BoycottPalmOil #Boycott4Wildlife.

Humans mirror behaviour of others e.g. with yawning 🥱 💤 This is ’emotional contagion’ and #Bonobos and other #primates do this too. We’re closer than we think! We must protect our cousins #Boycottpalmoil 🌴🩸💀❌ #Boycott4Wildlife @palmoildetect https://palmoildetectives.com/2022/01/30/contagious-yawns-show-social-ties-in-humans-and-bonobos/

This research challenges the view that emotional contagion is more pronounced in humans than in other species. It suggests that variation in empathy between humans and bonobos is influenced by the quality of relationships shared by individuals – but experts warn we must be careful to avoid anthropomorphising.

In the first cross-species study of its kind, Elisabetta Palagi, Ivan Norscia and Elisa Demuru from the Natural History Museum at the University of Pisa used levels of “yawn contagion” as a tool for measuring differences in empathy between humans and bonobos over a five-year period.

The ability of an individual to perceive and feel others’ emotions is hard to quantify, which has made measuring empathy in an objective way difficult.

“Empathy is extremely difficult to study,” said Dr Palagi. “The only possibility was to explore the most basal layer of empathy – emotional contagion – and ‘yawn contagion’ is a good candidate to measure emotional contagion.”

In humans and bonobos, the researchers compared levels of “yawn contagion” in weakly-bonded individuals with those occurring in strongly-bonded individuals, revealing important similarities and differences between the two species.

The strength of emotional bonding between individuals was found to be important in stimulating an empathic response only in close friends or kin, with strongly-bonded humans exhibiting a greater level of emotional contagion than strongly-bonded bonobos. A similar level of “yawn contagion” occurred between humans and bonobos in weakly-bonded subjects, reflecting shared empathic foundations between the two species.

“We found that the two species differed in the level and latency of yawn response only when the subjects involved were good friends,” said Dr Palagi. “When the two subjects did not share a particular bonding the two species showed a strong similarity in the frequency of yawn contagion, thus suggesting that both species react in a very similar way to emotional contagion solicitation.”

According to Dr Palagi, monitoring bonobos was a lot easier than monitoring human subjects, as the “yawn contagion” effect is easily disturbed in humans if subjects are conscious of it. Because of this, all people involved in the study were unaware of being observed.

“We calculated how many times each perceived a yawn spontaneously emitted by a another individual and counted how many times he or she responded to that yawn,” she said.

A window into our social past

A yawning Pygmy Marmoset

Mark Elgar, professor of evolutionary biology at the University of Melbourne, said the cross-species approach of the study produced some interesting results.

But he said we should exercise caution in attributing “yawn contagion” to empathic behaviour, since the evolutionary function of yawning behaviour itself remains a mystery.

“My nagging concern is that we don’t really understand why yawn contagion exists, especially since it can be triggered by at least two ‘emotive’ states – boredom and embarrassment – and one physiological state – tiredness,” Professor Elgar said. “What is the evolutionary significance of yawning?”

Darren Curnoe, associate professor in human evolution from the University of New South Wales, said the research helps us to better understand the “gap” between humans and other species – what it is that makes us unique.

“This fascinating research demonstrates at once how similar, and yet, how different we are to our chimpanzee and bonobo cousins,” he said.

He said the study also sheds light on the origin of human social behaviour.

“The desire to yawn, when we see it in others, is a reflection of our emotional connection to them and our brain sharing what they do,” he said. “It’s a result of our strong empathy with people whom we share strong bonds, we can’t help but imitate them. It has a very deep evolutionary origin back to our ape ancestors from millions of years ago.

“What’s unique though about our human form of emotional empathy is its intensity – we show a deeper form of empathy and bonding than chimpanzees or bonobos do. This is something that changed during our evolution and must reflect a difference in the way our ancestors behaved and organised themselves socially compared to chimps and bonobos.”

Penny Orbell, Editor, The Conversation

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

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Te suena “¿Para cuándo los nietos?” A los bonobos también 🐵😅 #bonobos #mamas #nietos