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Laura Moore's avatar

Loved this. These female bonobos are giving me life right now.

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Katrina Paulson's avatar

Me tooo!

Thank you for commenting, Laura, and for your kindness. I appreciate you!

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Charles Hitt's avatar

Cool. Maybe there is a particular gene or two that is key here. Since both chimps and bonobos share 98.7% of human dna, but differ only slightly from each other, there must be just a tiny amount of difference between their dna. I’m assuming that all three species share the same 98.7%. I wonder if anyone has parsed that small difference.

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Katrina Paulson's avatar

Not to my knowledge, but I sure hope they do.

The social and behavioral differences between chimpanzees and bonobos are definitely interesting. Over the years, I've heard speculation about whether humans are a mixture of the two temperaments, with our aggression inherited from chimps and our compassion and desire for de-escalation coming from bonobos. However, I am not aware of any research that has investigated such claims.

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