Bonobos

Whenever I learn something astounding, my initial reaction is "why didn't anyone tell me?"  Well, just couple days ago, I didn't know a single thing about bonobos, and now that I do, I am absolutely flabbergasted.  Why don't they teach about bonobos in schools?  Why aren't people writing about bonobos in their blogs?  Why aren't we talking about them in bars?  Why didn't I know about bonobos before?

If you didn't know what bonobos are, they are apes, previously known as pygmy Chimpanzees.  But scientists now consider them to be a different species of great apes. 

What makes bonobos so astounding are their similarities to us.  Some studies suggest that bonobos genes are 99.4% identical to humans.  Although I'm slightly skeptical of this statistic, there is no way of denying that two species are incredibly close to one another.

Take a look at this video, for instance.  For the first half of the video, the bonobos are having sex, and the eerie part is, they are facing each other.  Not only that, but look at them walk around in their hind legs, just like humans.  How are people not fascinated by this, I will never understand. 




Another clip of bonobos in love.  They gaze at each other, they hold hands, hug, and kiss (not so much in this video), just like human beings. 




And if you want to learn more, since my three days worth of bonobo research is far from expert knowledge, there's always TED: