The apes can be followed on a day-to-day basis and researchers learn how they interact with each other, and with other animals and plants. The role the bonobos play in this complex ecosystem, being predator of animals and plants, forest’s regenerator disseminating over hundred species, and prey of larger carnivores, is fascinating.
Congolese researchers were part of the LuiKotale Bonobo Project from the beginning. Here botanists are identifying plant species. Putting together a herbarium is a lot of work. In the early days, Bonobos were still a rare sighting but research on that ape species started nonetheless for example by collecting faeces for DNA sampling.
As everywhere in DRC, poaching was the major threat not only for bonobos but also for many other protected species.
Since 2002, 160 enthusiasts from 22 different nationalities contributed to the permanent presence of the LKBP on ground. Sixteen years later, researchers at LuiKotale can follow two habituated communities of bonobos consisting of about 70 individuals, all of which are named and known.
The bonobo is one of the last large mammals to be found by science. The creature was discovered in 1929 in a Belgian colonial museum, far from its lush African habitat.
Takayoshi KanoIn 1973, a 35-year-old Japanese researcher named Takayoshi Kano, the first scientist to study bonobos extensively in the wild, spent months trudging through the dank forests of what was then Zaire (formerly the Belgian Congo, now the Democratic Republic of the Congo) before he finally encountered a foraging party of ...
The first true ape studied as a scientific specimen was a chimpanzee dissected by Edward Tyson, an English anatomist, in 1699.
about 8 million years agoScientists believe that modern human and common chimpanzee/bonobo lineages split about 8 million years ago with the two great ape species splitting about 2 million years ago.
The Kokolopori Bonobo Research Projects supports the local communities in their efforts to construct schools and educate their children.
What can we learn from bonobos and chimpanzees? Those who are not familiar with bonobos and chimpanzees may have trouble telling the two species apart: they look alike and they live in similar habitats. In fact, it wasn't until 90 years ago that experts realised that bonobos and chimpanzees were different species.
Hominins first appear by around 6 million years ago, in the Miocene epoch, which ended about 5.3 million years ago. Our evolutionary path takes us through the Pliocene, the Pleistocene, and finally into the Holocene, starting about 12,000 years ago. The Anthropocene would follow the Holocene.
Triassic PeriodMammals were derived in the Triassic Period (about 252 million to 201 million years ago) from members of the reptilian order Therapsida.
Purgatorius(The first known primate, Purgatorius, dating back as far as 65 million years ago, is known only from isolated teeth and jaw fragments.) The animal most like Dryomomys today is a wee being called the pen-tailed tree shrew.
the Democratic Republic of CongoWild bonobos can only be found in forests south of the Congo River in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). Sometimes known as the pygmy chimpanzee, bonobos weren't recognized as a separate species until 1929.
around two million years agoIt is known that whereas DNA sequences in humans diverged from those in bonobos and chimpanzees five to seven million years ago, DNA sequences in bonobos diverged from those in chimpanzees around two million years ago.
Only identified as a species separate from chimps in 1929, bonobos intrigue biologists with their easygoing ways, sexual equality, female bonding, and zeal for recreational sex.