Chapter 15
Mike called
quietly back to the girls, “Keep your eyes open… we are in the middle of their
habitat.”
As the group
walked further up the trail, Patty heard the announcement long before she saw
them. “Bonobos!” She was looking through
the trees ahead when she saw Roger point up. Way up. There in the forest canopy
she caught a blurr of motion. It was her first glimpse of a wild bonobo
swinging acrobatically through the trees. The group of humans stopped for a
moment and watched. Gradually more bonobos began to move. Several vocalized,
using high pitched squeals that sounded like a flock of birds.
Patty exclaimed,
“They sure sound different than chimpanzees.”
“Yes. They’re a
whole different breed. You’ll see.”
Mike motioned for
everyone to be very quiet, his index finger at his lips. “It’s 12:30 now, let’s all meet back here at
this tree around three o’clock.” He used
gestures to point at the bonobos and suggested everybody fan out and begin
their observations.
Patty crawled
through the grass to the cover of a small grove of Crabwood trees. She winced
with the pain in her muscles but she was excited at the prospect of beginning
her observations of wild bonobos. She parked her sore backside in the lee of a
large tree and cautiously pulled the long grass back. There in the trees above her were three adult
bonobos. As she watched, several more adults were visible, some moving through
the trees but also two or three walking through the forest at ground level.
Shrill shrieks pierced the air regularly.
Bonobos live in
large groups of up to one hundred members, breaking up into much smaller foraging
groups by day and gathering together to nest at night in the protection of the
rain forest canopy. By day, the number of bonobos in a group ebbs and flows in
what is called a “fission-fusion” lifestyle.
That is, when one group of bonobos encounters another group, some
members will join the new group while members of the other group will join the
original group.
Patty opened her
journal and noted the date and time. She focused her first observation on the
three adult bonobos, all of which were female.
The females were
on the move along a large limb. As Patty
watched, a young male dropped from out of nowhere and seated himself on a
crotch in the limb, effectively cutting the three females off from the trunk of
the tree. “You bugger” Patty thought,
wondering what the females would do. The first of the females pushed his
shoulder and let out a short screech. But the male was being obstinate and only
grinned back at the females. He reached
up and pulled down a large palm leaf, creating a curtain to stop the females
from leaving. He screeched back. The first female retreated back along the
limb while a second female had a go at him. From her observations of chimpanzees,
Patty expected the disagreement to get physical. The second female walked up to the male and
as she got close, she swung around and rubbed her swollen pink vulva along his
shoulder and down his arm. The male relaxed his grip on the palm leaf and after
a little more “feminine persuasion”, he let it go and rolled out of the crotch
in the branch. He climbed up the trunk
of the tree and carried on, back up into his private perch somewhere higher up
the tree.
Patty started taking notes of what she had
just seen.
Roger joined
her. “How’s the view?”
“So far so good,
there are three females…” she pointed at them, “and a male but he’s gone now.”
“Oh that was probably
Koko. Was he annoying them?”
“Yes, how did
you know? He dropped in and blocked them
from moving for a minute or so.”
“Yes… Koko is
still a juvenile male. He’s always after female attention. Did they give him some sugar?”
Patty looked
puzzled for a moment. “Well if rubbing herself on him is giving him some sugar,
then yes he got some sugar.” Patty smiled sarcastically.
Roger laughed. “Yes sorry, that’s what we call it out here.
Call it genital contact in your notes though.
He’ll be back for more of that.”
The three female
bonobos dropped to the ground and walked, single file across a clearing to a
grove of trees near the researchers.
While one bonobo walked on its two feet, looking very similar to a human
in its posture and gait, the other two used all fours to walk.
Roger spoke,
“The one up front is walking bipedally right now. Just like a human. The other two are using quadrupal knuckle
walking.”
As Roger and
Patty watched, the three females discovered a fig tree loaded down with ripe
figs. Following several happy shrieks and some joyous facial expressions, the
two oldest bonobo females turned to face each other. One wrapped her arms and
legs around the other while the second one returned the embrace and lifted the
first one off the ground as they rubbed their genitals together vigorously. The sexual act lasted several seconds and
ended with grunting and orgasmic groans. The third female simply sat in the
grass and waited, seemingly oblivious to the sex act going on in front of her.
“There it was.
That was what we call GG rubbing. Genital to genital. You’ll see a lot of that
between the females. They will share the
food now.” Roger said.
The females
pulled a limb down from the fig tree and started picking handfuls of figs,
including the leaves which they ate voraciously. The third Bonobo approached and picked a
handful of figs while one of the others held the limb for her.
“Why do they eat
the leaves?”
“Oh that. Bonobos self-medicate for intestinal parasites
during the rainy season. It’s not
unusual for bonobos to eat leaves and chew them up but when they swallow them
whole, the roughage helps them excrete tapeworms and other parasites. I’ll show you some… Oh look… here comes
Koko.” Roger pointed at the juvenile male crossing the clearing through the
long grass.
Patty gave up on
her note taking and pulled her video camera from its pouch. As she recorded the scene unfolding before
her, the young male ran bipedally towards the three females dragging a branch
that he had picked up. The females all noticed him and as he charged at them,
they turned as one and shrieked at him in their high pitched voices. He veered
off, quite pleased with himself. When
the females turned back to the figs, he charged again but they sat down facing
him, munching on figs that they had picked.”
“He’s only
bluffing” Roger whispered, “Now they are giving him the evil eye.”
Koko looked away
as the females stared him down. Not wanting to lose the attention he was
getting, he stood up as tall as he could and bent over, grasping a sapling
close to the roots. Koko began to pull
on the tree as he tried to pull it out by the roots. He waved it to and fro violently as he shook
it. But the tree wasn’t budging and he
started to shriek, probably feeling a little embarrassed in front of the
ladies. He wasn’t willing to give up and he started jumping up and down,
demolishing the branches of the tree as he broke it into twigs. One of the females ate her last fig, got to
her feet and walked over to Koko. She put her arm around him and kissed him,
soothing him by stroking the hair on his neck and back. He let go of the tree and turned to her, returning
her kisses. He hugged her and touched
her swollen labias with his hand. She
immediately flopped down on her back in the grass and offered herself to him.
Patty lost sight
of the two bonobos in the long grass but there was little doubt from the sounds
that Koko was having some stress relief.
A moment later, Koko was on his feet again and he walked over to the fig
tree and started picking figs. Patty pressed “stop” on her camera.
“That was it?”
asked Patty.
“Yup. They
aren’t exactly known for a lot of foreplay.” laughed Roger.
“But that was
what? Ten, maybe twelve seconds?”
Roger was
smiling.
Patty laughed. “Reminds
me of my first boyfriend.” Her face turned red as she blushed.
They both
laughed.
“TMI… I’m not
touching that.” Roger smiled.
“But if I’m not
mistaken, that was ‘missionary position”?
Patty asked. “Chimpanzees only do
it doggy style”.
“Yes, female bonobos
have more of a frontal vaginal orientation, similar to humans. I told you bonobos are more like humans than chimpanzees.
You’ll see them do it both ways.” Mike
added, “Do you know why we call it missionary position?”
“Ummm no? Not
really.”
“Because until
the 1950’s, the natives only did it doggy style. It was the missionaries that had to teach
them to have sex face-to-face because it was considered more intimate and less
animalistic. It came as a shock in the
1970’s when it was reported that bonobos have sex more like humans than
animals.”
“Oh thanks… I’ll
remember that.” Patty smiled. This was
getting a little too personal, even for a couple of scientists. They watched as
the bonobos moved away from the figs up into the trees until they lost sight of
them. Patty and Roger waited for a couple minutes but the group of bonobos was
moving along.
Roger broke the
silence, “So what do you want to do now?”
Patty shrugged.
“I guess I’ll pack up and see if I can do another observation or two.” She
folded up her camera and put it and her notebook back into her pack.
As Patty went to
get up, Roger put out his hand to pull her up.
For a millisecond she hesitated, an alarm ringing in her head. Deep inside her brain where her emotional
memory stored painful memories was a vague recollection of a bad experience
that started just like this. Shaking off
the confusion caused by the subconscious warning, Patty took his hand. He
smiled as he pulled her to her feet.
“How are your
sore muscles?”
She groaned, “Oh
I’m still feeling it from last night. That was quite the hike.”
They both
smiled, no worse for wear considering they had retrieved the young bonobo.
Roger lingered a millisecond or two longer than necessary while holding her
hand.
The pair walked
deeper into the jungle.
