Chimps are well-known to possess traits that are very similar to human behaviour. But sometimes, the resemblances become overwhelming, even for scientists.
After a new study, researchers are amazed to discover that chimps and bonobos are showings greetings signs of “hello” and “goodbye” to one another and at the right moment, like when they’re entering or leaving a place, according to Live Science.
Bonobos are more polite
At least one of the researchers’ statements was crystal clear, as quoted by LiveScience.org:
“Our findings show that two species of great apes habitually go through the same process and stages as humans when establishing, executing and terminating joint actions” of hi and bye.
The researchers had been analyzing 1,242 interactions of apes from zoos. They found out that the creatures often communicate with one another through gestures such as touching. The apes performed such actions before and after their encounters. Bonobos were found to be more polite than chimps, as the first greeted each other more often.
Bonobos gave entry signals and gazes to one another in 90% of the cases. As for chimps, they only did those things 69% of the time. As for departures, bonobos also win it, as they’ve manifested the right behaviours 92% of the time. Chimps showed the same type of behaviour in only 86% of the encounters.
Study lead researcher Raphaela Heesen, and also a postdoctoral researcher from the department of psychology at the Durham University in the United Kingdom, declared as quoted by LiveScience.org:
“Behavior doesn’t fossilize. You can’t dig up bones to look at how behavior has evolved. But you can study our closest living relatives: great apes like chimpanzees and bonobos,
“Whether this type of communication is present in other species will also be interesting to study in the future.”
The new study was published in iScience.