Her lips are orange from eating clay, probably to counter plant toxins in her diet. An exclusive look at bonobos. Wamba was founded in by a Japanese primatologist named Takayoshi Kano for the study of the bonobo, Pan paniscus, a species of simian unlike any other. Modern studies of zoo populations by the Dutch-American biologist Frans de Waal and others have documented its easy, pervasive sexuality and its propensity for amicable bonding especially among females , in contrast with chimpanzee dominance battles especially among males and intergroup warfare.
Apart from several interruptions, including a hiatus during the Congo wars of , observations at Wamba have continued ever since. At Lui Kotale, his research site outside Salonga National Park, he and other researchers wear surgical masks to protect against possible transmission of human infections to the bonobos.
Early one morning I followed a researcher named Tetsuya Sakamaki, also from Kyoto University, into the forest. Promptly I saw things that, according to the popular image of the species, I might not have expected.
Bonobos quarreled. They hunted for meat. They went hours at a stretch without having sex. This was the animal so renowned for its lubricious, pacific social life? As Sakamaki and I watched a party of bonobos feeding on the fruits of a boleka tree—small, grapelike morsels with papery husks—he identified the individuals by name.
(mh=5OhVLaUO1RM1gmpR)6.jpg "SEX AGENCY in Kinshasa")
That female there, with the sexual swelling, we call her Nova, he said. She last gave birth in ; the gaudy inflation of her genital area, like a pink sofa cushion taped to her rump, advertised her readiness to breed again.
