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Tuesday, February 9, 2010

Bonobo cannibalism?

Hey everyone, check this out:


Wild bonobo mother ape eats own infant in DR Congo
By Matt Walker
Editor, Earth News


A wild bonobo has been seen cannibalising her own recently deceased two and a half-year-old infant


http://news.bbc.co.uk/earth/hi/earth_news/newsid_8487000/8487138.stm

this result is amazing.

nothing like this has been ever been seen like this before, that I know of, but Gottfried's work is excellent, so this is super exciting. just last year they saw meat eating in bonobos, which had also never been seen before.

i wonder if the infant was killed by a high ranking male.

we've never seen anything like this in the sanctuary. the last time I saw an infant die, the mother held onto it for days and the keepers had trouble taking the body away.

results like gottfried's illustrate the complexity of bonobo social behavior and the necessity of further research on thee amazing creatures.