Chimpanzees Exchange Meat For Sex 313
the_therapist writes "A team from the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Germany, studied chimps in the Tai Forest reserve in Ivory Coast and discovered that chimpanzees enter into 'deals' whereby they exchange meat for sex. Among the findings are that 'male chimps that are willing to share the proceeds of their hunting expeditions mate twice as often as their more selfish counterparts.' They also found this to be 'a long-term exchange, so males continue to share their catch with females when they are not fertile, copulating with them when they are.'"
NOT News . . . seen Bonobos (Score:5, Informative)
This behavior has been quite well documented in bonobos, which until recently were considered chimps or dwarf chimps. I'm not sure what makes this article newsworthy, except that we all like to read about meat and sex...
Try reading a copy of "The Hunting Ape" by Stanford... It's fascinating in covering hunting and culture in apes (including trading food for sex).
From what I've read, I'd also disagree with the article that meat is so valuable to their diet. They LOVE meat, but other research suggests that the amount of energy expended on hunting compared to what they gain in protein/food is a net negative. Hunting is also high risk and includes getting injured in the process.
Re:Not new (Score:1, Informative)
Re:Not new (Score:5, Informative)
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/05/magazine/05FREAK.html [nytimes.com]
http://scienceblogs.com/purepedantry/2007/05/monkey_economics.php [scienceblogs.com]
http://blog.wired.com/wiredscience/2008/07/monkeys-practic.html [wired.com]
These links all point to the story, but not to any sort of brief from the research conducted by Keith Chen
http://www.som.yale.edu/faculty/keith.chen/ [yale.edu]
Anybody know where that is?
Different behaviour (Score:4, Informative)
The point of TFA is that outright prostitution does NOT exist. Giving meat does not produce results there and then and does not guarantee them in the future. It's not a pay-to-play deal.
What is observed with chimps is something far more interesting, as it shows an awareness of delayed gratification on the part of the males and of long-term strategies by the females.
Basically, meat is nutritionally high-value food compared to anything the females can get otherwise. This means that giving meat to the females improves the health and strength of the females. The female doesn't reward the male for the meat, but rather rewards the male for superior long-term care and support.
In other words, it's not an exchange, nothing is being bartered, and no individual gift by either side is connected in any way to any individual gift by the other. Instead, it looks much closer to long-term strategies by both sides where a move might be planned weeks or months in advance.
To compare chimps with bonobos is like comparing (theoretically intelligent) economists with stock market day-traders. I'd argue the chimps are actually smarter than economists, as chimps have fewer housing bubbles and the meat supply doesn't go bankrupt as often.
For all the primitiveness of the exchange, this indicates an extremely high level of intelligence that is beyond a fairly large percent of the human population. Humans do NOT do well on delayed gratification.
Re:Plank institute? (Score:3, Informative)
Max Planck Society is the basic research organization that exists parallel to the universities in Germany. Used to be called Kaiser Wilhelm Society but was renamed after the war.
Re:Same behavior in humans too (Score:3, Informative)
To be fair, I left out the category who just has no interest (men and women).
If there is not resentment or emotional damage in the relationship, a hormone issue is often behind lack of desire.
When I went on hormones, it was like a lightswitch. Suddenly I had lust again, I could think straight, I stopped having night sweats, I started getting restful sleep, and I was a lot less emotional (I was becoming estrogen dominant). Since then I've furred up too.