Biology Reference
In-Depth Information
While Tratz and Heck's classification has been generally accepted by the scientific community,
some argue that bonobos and chimpanzees are so close to humans that they should be classified
in the Homo genus. Even Carl Linnaeus, who in the eighteenth century developed the system of
Latin names that botanists and zoologists still use, called the orangutan Homo nocturnus or Homo
sylvestris orang-outang , though he based his evaluation on the reports of travelers who claimed that
the Indonesian great ape could speak.
Until recently, bonobos lacked public champions whereas the other great apes have had Jane
Goodall, Dian Fossey, and Birutė Galdikas. But with a growing number of topics, documentaries,
and films now dedicated to them, bonobos are becoming media darlings even as they are being ex-
terminated in the Congo. The attention they receive can be attributed to their peaceful disposition
and their reputation as Kama Sutra apes—a reputation that is, of course, based on behavior seen
through the lens of human sexuality.
The primatologist Frans de Waal writes in Bonobo: The Forgotten Ape of how bonobos use sex
for both appeasement and affection, saying that the label sex might be inappropriate if perceived as
a “behavioral category aimed at an orgasmic climax.” A little later in his career, though, in response
to an article questioning the sexual nature of bonobo behavior, he writes, “Fortunately, a United
States court settled this monumental issue in the Paula Jones case against President Bill Clinton. It
clarified that the term 'sex' includes any deliberate contact with the genitalia, anus, groin, breast,
inner thigh, or buttocks.” With bonobos, sex encompasses a number of tendencies—something, de
Waal points out, that is also true for humans, though rarely acknowledged: “Our sexual urges are
subject to such powerful moral constraints that it may have become hard to recognize how—as Sig-
mund Freud was the first to point out—they permeate all aspects of social life.” De Waal suggests
that bonobo society could teach us much about what human sexuality might look like without those
constraints.
As I began to gain a better understanding of bonobos, of what traits they share with humans
and how they might experience the world, I encountered the work of Dr. Sue Savage-Rumbaugh, an
American primatologist. Since the 1970s, Savage-Rumbaugh has been working with great apes in
captivity, investigating whether they have a capacity for language. She first studied chimpanzees at
Georgia State University, then bonobos that had been brought from the Congo. She developed tech-
nology that enabled bonobos to communicate with humans by pushing a lexigram on a keyboard
attached to a computer, which would log and articulate its corresponding word in English. The ap-
proach Savage-Rumbaugh developed wasn't clinical but holistic; she used the lexigrams in con-
junction with activities that gave them immediate, relevant, even urgent meaning to the bonobos.
But despite her creative approaches, her work remained challenging for years until Kanzi, a baby
bonobo who observed the language lessons that his adoptive mother, Matata, suffered through, re-
vealed his skills. On a day when Matata had been taken away for breeding and Kanzi was alone
with Savage-Rumbaugh, he began using the keyboard to communicate, producing “120 separate ut-
terances, using 12 different symbols.” She hadn't realized that he'd been learning English naturally,
the way human children do, just by “being exposed to it.”
Kanzi has since become a celebrity, demonstrating his talents on CNN and The Oprah Winfrey
Show . Given that a bonobo's vocal cords are not suited to human language, he has to communicate
using his keyboard or a sheet printed with lexigrams. When a lexigram is lacking, he composes,
asking for pizza by pointing to “cheese,” “tomato,” and “bread.” He can also understand spoken
language and has responded correctly to sentences such as “Could you carry the television outdoors,
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