Search results for ""author takeshi furuichi""

This book describes the similarities and differences between two species, bonobos and chimpanzees, based on the three decades the author has spent studying them in the wild, and shows how the contrasting nature of these two species is also reflected in human nature. The most important differences between bonobos and chimpanzees, our closest relatives, are the social mechanisms of coexistence in group life. Chimpanzees are known as a fairly despotic species in which the males exclusively dominate over the females, and maintain a rigid hierarchy. Chimpanzees have developed social intelligence to survive severe competition among males: by upholding the hierarchy of dominance, they can usually preserve peaceful relations among group members. In contrast, female bonobos have the same or even a higher social status than males. By evolving pseudo-estrus during their non-reproductive period, females have succeeded in moderating inter-male sexual competition, and in initiating mate selection. Although they are non-related in male-philopatric society, they usually aggregate in a group, enjoy priority access to food, determine which male is the alpha male, and generally maintain much more peaceful social relations compared to chimpanzees. Lastly, by identifying key mechanisms of social coexistence in these two species, the author also seeks to find solutions or “hope” for the peaceful coexistence of human beings."Takeshi Furuichi is one of very few scientists in the world familiar with both chimpanzees and bonobos. In lively prose, reflecting personal experience with apes in the rain forest, he compares our two closest relatives and explains the striking differences between the male- dominated and territorial chimpanzees and the female-centered gentle bonobos."Frans de Waal, author of Mama’s Last Hug - Animal Emotions and What They Tell Us about Ourselves (Norton, 2019)

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This book reviews all the findings about bonobos and the local people of Wamba village in the Luo Scientific Reserve in the Democratic Republic of the Congo over the last 50 years. In 1973, Takayoshi Kano, a Japanese primatologist, traveled across a vast area of the Congo Basin with a bicycle and found Wamba village to be a promising site to start his first studies on wild bonobos. Since then, many researchers from Japan and all over the world have been working at Wamba, now the longest standing study site, to uncover various aspects of the ecology and behavior of this most recently identified great ape species. The researchers study bonobo behaviors and carry out various activities for the conservation of bonobos. They also conduct anthropological studies of local people who live with bonobos and believe them to be distant relatives from the same family, living in the forest. This book is published in commemoration of 2023 marking the 50th year of study. The main chapters are contributed by active researchers studying bonobos and the local people at Wamba. The book also includes contributions from various eminent researchers who have carried out short-term research or have supported research at Wamba, which helps place these studies of bonobos in a broader primatological or anthropological perspective. This book will be a useful resource for professional researchers in primatology and anthropology, as well as graduate or undergraduate students interested in these research fields.

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