the canines of the females(Flannery, 2000, p.1). Molecular biologists estimate that the bonobo diverged from its relative, the common chimpanzee, only about 1.5 million years ago(Kano, 1990, p.1). The body structure of the bonobo is an adaptation for climbing and living an arboreal lifestyle in the rainforest (AZA, 1998, p.1).This little known ape is not really a chimpanzee, gorilla, or an orangutan. It is a very unique creature, whose anatomy resembles that of Lucy the most famous find of pre-human skeleton (Bonobo, 2000, p.1). P. paniscus 3Because of the similar morphological traits, some anthropologists consider the bonobo to be the best living prototype for the common ancestor of humans and African apes (AZA, 1998, p.1). Thus, it would follow that the bonobos have many human-like morphological, physiological, and behavioral traits. Natural History:Major foods of the bonobos include fruits, shoots, leaves, seeds, flowers, and bark. An invertebrate source includes ants, termites, bees, crickets, caterpillars, beetles, earthworms, and millipedes. Vertebrate meat sources include rodents, insectivores, and snakes. Fibrous foods (herbs, shoots, pith and ground plant stems) are more important as alternative foods when fruit is scarce (Hodgson, 1996, p.1). This species will use over 113 types of plants in a year(Flannery, 2000, p.1). This is a diurnal and semi-terrestrial species, although it is more arboreal than P. troglodytes (Flannery, 2000, p.1).Reproduction: Bonobos have abundant, mutual precopulatory and copluatory signals, variable copulatory postures, and more prolonged copulations than most other primates The bonobo gives birth to a single offspring. During estrus, the perineum of the female will swell up (Flannery, 2000, p.3).P.paniscus 4 Mating is not only done dorso-ventral, as in P. troglodytes, but also ventro-ventral, or face to face (Flannery, 2000, p.4). Female adult bonobos give birth to one infant every five years and g...
