My friend Cory made this icon awhile ago :)
It might look like a chimp but it is actually a Bonobo which is definitely not a chimpanzee... here are some bits from a document that mentions some interesting facts about bonobos, by Gregory Carey c1998, chapter 15: Intro to Evolutionary Psychology -1
Like chimps, bonobos are social primates in which males remain with their natal group while females typically emigrate to a neighboring group. However, the structure
of a bonobo community is quite different from a chimp. In contrast to the strong maleoriented chimp society, the adult bonobo female is either codominant or has a moderate dominance advantage over her male counterpart even though she is physically smaller than he is (Kano, 1992; Wrangham & Peterson, 1996). Among bonobos, who you are counts more than what sex you are. The strongest social bonds are among females and between a male and his mother. The weakest bonds are among males.
Politics of chimp males takes a decidedly softer tone in male bonobos. In fact, an adult bonobo male often relies upon his mother and her close female friends to intervene and mute aggression from another male (de Waal, 1989, 1995).
Like the chimp, heterosexual sex in bonobos is associated with estrus, but a bonobo female spends more of her cycle in sexually receptive mode than her chimpanzee
cousin. Bonobo mating is largely promiscuous, so paternity is rarely assured.
The techniques of bonobo sex give the impression that some ancient bonobo had memorized a human sex manual and tried everything out. In the bonobo's life, sex
begins long before puberty and involves a number of different positions (among them, the infamous missionary position), genital stimulation by hands, and overt oral sex.
Two female bonobos will engage in hoka-hoka, the local African phrase for genito-genital rubbing. The two lie together in the missionary position, bring their clitorises together, and move their hips quickly from side to side. Hoka-Hoka ends, as Wrangham and Peterson (1996, p. 210) state, "with mutual screams, clutching limbs, muscular contractions, and a tense, still moment. It looks like orgasm."
Bonobos engage in sex for a much wider range of reasons than chimps and even
humans. While it is not uncommon for a female chimp to offer sex in exchange for a
favored food item, it is a regular occurrence in bonobo life. Sex is used for reconciliation after a disagreement (de Waal, 1989) for establishing friendships, for calming down an emotional friend, and for greeting someone who has been away for a while. It also may The easiest way to distinguish a bonobo from a chimp is to look at the hair on top of their heads. Chimps have short hair with no "style" to it. Bonobos have long hair that is neatly parted right down the middle (Geek monkeys!)
And sex is frequent; a bonobo can mate several dozen times in a single day. It should come as little surprise then that after hearing this lecture in class, one student turned his eyes skyward, clasped his hands in prayer, and muttered, "God,if there is reincarnation, then next time please make me a bonobo."
Compared to chimps, almost every species is peaceful but bonobos males are especially so. Intermale aggression does indeed occur among bonobos but not nearly at
the rate it does among chimps.
Male aggression against a female, almost a daily occurrence in chimps, is much less frequent in bonobos. Any bonobo male with sufficient temerity to threaten and attack a female is likely to find himself being driven off by a gang of her female friends. Infanticide, if it takes place at all, is rare. There have been no documented cases of bonobos forming party gangs to invade a neighboring territory in order to kill a male. Au contraire, two adjacent bonobo communities have been known to meet, socialize, and, of course, have sex with each other. This is something unheard of in chimp society.
The picture of bonobos as the "make love not war" species of pan is tempered by the fact that bonobos have not been studied in their wild habitats as intensively as chimps. Hence, certain types of aggression, like infanticide and murder, may actually occur but at such rare rates that they have yet to be observed.
All thanks to Cory for spreading Bonobo knowledge :)
