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And their risk-taking strategy is also confirmed by the fact that, unlike bonobos, they hunt, kill and eat colobus monkeys. If the hunt comes off, the group gets to feast on protein-rich colobus meat -- if not, they all go hungry. The distinction is intriguing, because in many respects the two primate species are very similar, having diverged from a common ancestor less than a million years ago, which in evolutionary terms is recent. They have similar body size and appearance and share much of the same behavior and social hierarchy. The difference, though, lies in their diet. Both apes feed heavily on fruit, but bonobos also tuck into herbaceous vegetation on the ground, which is a more reliable source of sustenance. In addition, bonobos may also have access to larger fruit patches, facing less competition within a given patch than chimpanzees. So what makes chimps gamble is a clever survival mechanism -- their food resources are less certain, which means they have learnt to cope with going for big or bust, say the authors, led by Sarah Heilbronner of Harvard University and Duke University, North Carolina. The results show how ecological pressures can sculpt decision-making, a tenet that also applies to humans, they believe. "As humans did not evolve in the context of modern economies, many of our preferences are likely tailored to providing adaptive foraging and other evolutionary-relevant decisions," they say. Thus, when you venture into the urban jungle late at night, with your eyes, ears and nose alert to the sight, sizzle and smell of a double cheeseburger, you are obeying the same genetic drivers as your hunter-gatherer forebears, millions of years ago. Related Links: Jennifer Viegas' blog: Born Animal |
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