Meet The Bonobo
STATUS: Endangered
POPULATION: ~15,000
Bonobos look very similar to chimpanzees but tend to be smaller, leaner and a little bit darker in color than chimps. They are very similar to chimpanzees and only recently, in 1929, were they recognized as a distinct species, making them the least studied of the great apes. Bonobos live south of the Congo River, in the Democratic Republic of Congo. They are considered humans’ closest relatives, alongside the chimpanzees, as their DNA is 98.7% equal to that of human DNA.
Bonobos are also considered the most peaceful of the great apes and the only one of their kind whose groups are led by females. Bonobo groups can reach large numbers – at times up to 120 – but they tend to form subgroups of 2-15 individuals. While bonobos are aiming towards peace within their immediate groups, when these subgroups meet it can sometimes lead to conflict.
Female bonobos reach sexual maturity at the age of 12 and interestingly, female offsprings leave their mother’s groups upon maturity while male offsprings stay by their mother for life. Unfortunately, their reproductive rate is quite slow wherein, after reaching sexual maturity, female bonobos usually give birth to a single young only once every 5 years.
Studies have found 18 variants of forest plants are unable to reproduce without assistance from the bonobos.
What’s the danger?
The number of bonobos left in the wild is not exactly known since only 30% of their historic range has been surveyed. Some say their number is a minimum of 10-20,000 while some sources suggest there could still be a 50,000 individuals. No matter the size, their population is rapidly decreasing for a number of reasons.
The majority of the bonobo’s range falls under unprotected areas. The only protected area is the Salonga National Park. Because most of it is unprotected civil unrest and poverty was able to fuel poaching and deforestation in South Congo. Humans poach the bonobos to eat their meat, to trade with them to keep them as pets or to use them for traditional medicinal purposes. As humans want to claim more ground for agricultural activities and logging, bonobos lose more and more of their natural habitat each year.
On top of it all the naturally low reproductive rate of the bonobos make it very challenging to their decreasing population. If we don’t take initiative soon, they could be lost forever.
ENVIRONMENTAL RELATIONS
Bonobos play a crucial role in the ecosystem of the forests they live in. If bonobos were to go extinct, their forests would face an ecosystem decay as many plants simply can’t reproduce without the help of the bonobos. They eat a lot of seeds which are then spread naturally and deposited, generating additional plantlife.
A research conducted by biologist David Beaune of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in the LuiKotala forest – one of the bonobo’s primary habitats – found that 18 types of plants were unable to reproduce themselves without assistance from the bonobos’ gut. Their stomach acids an intestinal movements weaken the harder outer coating of the plant seeds which help them absorb water and sprout.
Bonobos also travel an average 1.2 miles in between eating and defecating which also helps the plants continue to spread, as many of the seeds cannot survive if they are not dispersed far enough from the parent plant. Because of the bonobo’s diet and travel pattern, according to Beaune, there are no other species in LuiKotale that could fill the same ecological role.
The most famous Bonobo is probably Kanzi, who was taught to use an image-based keyboard system. He knows more than 200 hundred words!
Photo by Fanny Schertzer via Wikimedia Commons
How can we help?
World Wildlife Fund is helping with training, equipment and field supplies to conduct surveys of the bonobo’s habitat. They also provide assistance to the anti-poaching units of the Salonga National Park and the Congolese Wildlife Authority.
The Bonobo Project is another nonprofit organization that aims to elevate the status of the bonobos. They coordinate multiple activities, conservation and awareness efforts to help save the species.
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