Biology Reference
In-Depth Information
evening, they make new nests, pulling branches together, snapping or just bending and weaving
them, exposing the forest floor to the sun. In the night and morning, they defecate, and their drop-
pings fall to the earth, carrying seeds that have passed through their guts largely intact. The seeds
are mixed with fertile roughage and their hulls have been abraded by the digestive tract, making
them more ready to sprout. In the patches of sunlight where the nests broke the canopy, the seeds
grow more easily, taking root in the rainforest's thick loam. Because the bonobos travel so widely
within their territory, they spread seeds, contributing to biodiversity. Without the bonobos—as well
as the numerous other rainforest animals, from elephants, to buffalos, to birds—certain tree species
might even go extinct.
With dawn, the forest began to reveal its contents, the stony phallic mounds of termites, some
mushroom-shaped, others veritable lingams, a foot to three feet tall. Mushrooms grew from rotting
sticks, some white and pin-shaped, others vivid orange saucers. A few gray caterpillars with red and
black markings crawled on my poncho, others on leaves. Called
mbindjo
, they, like
mpose
, provide
protein for both the locals and the bonobos.
The clouds glowed, sunlight struggling through, and as we stared at the dense canopy, the sky
was a million specks of mercury, the leaves like lacework around larger openings.
Branches began to shake, drops of water falling. A bonobo's arm weaved out briefly. A figure
walked along a branch with a humanlike swaying of its shoulders. An adult bonobo gave its high-
pitched hoot, and then a baby wailed, very much like a human baby, but just two or three times
before it fell silent.
The canopy again ceased to move. Léonard told us that the bonobos would wait in the highest
branches for the sunlight to warm them. Like us, they are slow to rise on rainy mornings. I pictured
them seated on the immense branches, at the summit of this tree rising above the rest of the forest.
They stared out over the green ocean, slowly blinking their black and luminous eyes. It was hard
not to wonder at that primeval experience, of a creature so similar to ourselves living in such abso-
lute elements, gathered with its family, sitting in peace at the line of forest and sky.
Staring up, I got vertigo and needed to look down for a moment before I could take a step.
Above me, the dark interlacing canopy seemed liquid, the sky shining through like a reflection of
light cast on the deep, shadowed water of a well. Each of the bonobos' movements caused the leaves
to shimmer as if a pebble had been dropped in.
We waited for over an hour. Alan identified the calls of birds for us, the chiming of the emerald
cuckoo and the low mournful fluting of the chocolate-backed kingfisher. Léonard explained that
this particular community of bonobos had twenty-five members, three adult males, twelve females,
six adolescents (three of each sex), and four babies.
Eventually, the branches began to shake in earnest. A large piece of deadwood fell and thudded
against the loam. The bonobos all seemed to be awake, but waiting. The dark circles of their nests
were barely visible.
They might have been feeding on
mbindjo
in the trees, Léonard told us. Along a high branch, a
female walked on all fours, the pink bulge of her vaginal swelling clear even at this distance, a child
following behind. Normally, bonobo infants cling to their mothers until they are four or five years
old, but this one was larger, more independent.
Sally opened a bag and began passing around power bars and trail mix. This was a tradition she
had begun, that visitors and trackers ate together, and she told me that it never failed to intrigue
the bonobos. Food sharing is central to their culture, and often, when they come upon plentiful
