A scientist who decoded the vocalisations that a bird uses to communicate has won a $100,000 prize for making progress towards a world in which humans can talk to the animals – without being met with a blank response. Dr Julie Elie at the University of California, Berkeley, was awarded the 2026 Coller-Dolittle prize for […]
Tag: Bonobos
Bonobos transformed how we think about animal societies. Can we save the last of the ‘hippy apes’?
Afew dozen large nests appear in the mist of equatorial dawn, half-hidden behind a tangle of vines and leaves. That is where the bonobos sleep, 12 metres above the ground. But it has rained all night, and the primates are in no hurry to get up. It is 6.30am when the first head emerges. It gives […]
Birth of UK’s Only Bonobo Baby Gives Fresh Hope for World’s Most Endangered Ape
Conservationists and zookeepers are celebrating our closest living relative giving birth to a healthy baby. Heart-tugging photos show the bonobo mother Yuli cradling her tiny newborn after it was born at Twycross Zoo in Leicestershire last Thursday. Experts have hailed the birth as a ‘globally significant’ moment which could help save one of the world’s […]
Crows Only Known Animals Other Than Humans That Can Differentiate Between Geometric Shapes
Crows are widely known to be one of the most intelligent animals on the planet, along with elephants, chimpanzees, orangutans and dolphins. A new study has revealed that at least one crow species can recognize regularity in geometric shapes — the ability to pick out a shape that differs from others — a skill previously […]
Bonobos Communicate in Complex Phrases, a Language Process Once Thought Unique to Humans
Bonobos—the closest living relatives to humans—create complex and meaningful combinations of calls resembling the word combinations of humans, says a new study that challenges long-held assumptions about what makes human communication unique. The study conducted by researchers at Harvard and the University of Zurich, has investigated the vocal behavior of wild bonobos on the Kokolopori […]
Famous bonobo Kanzi, known for smarts & gaming, dies at age 44
Kanzi, the world’s most celebrated bonobo who learned to communicate and play Minecraft with humans, died last week in Iowa, U.S., at the age of 44. Ape Initiative, a research organization in the city of Des Moines dedicated to the study and conservation of endangered bonobos (Pan paniscus) and where Kanzi lived since 2004, said […]
Bonobo numbers in DRC park stable, but signs of decline appear
Bonobo populations in the Democratic Republic of Congo‘s Salonga National Park remained steady between 2002 and 2018, but there are worrying signals of decline, a recent study has found. For decades, Salonga has been known to host the largest known population of bonobos (Pan paniscus), an endangered great ape found only in the DRC. However, […]
Bonobos, the ‘hippy apes’, may not be as peaceful as once thought
Anthropologist Maud Mouginot recalls an encounter with bonobos early one morning in 2019 deep in the forests of the Democratic Republic of Congo that helped revise her impression of them as the peace-loving “hippy apes.” It was still pitch dark in Kokolopori Bonobo Reserve, in the center of the country, and she and colleagues were […]