Quotes & Sayings About Bonobos

Since the bigger gorillas leave chimps only a fraction of the quantity of food bonobos get, each chimp must fight ferociously to survive, including killing other chimpanzees — Eliot Schrefer

Winning the love of a higher-status person is a widespread strategy for stimulating serotonin. Of course, we don't consciously equate love with status. But when a highstatus person of the right gender notices you, your brain lights up. Your neurochemistry screams "Go toward this. It is very good for your survival. " Even bonobos, the apes known for their sexual dynamism, compete vigorously for high-status partners — Anonymous

Most men probably wouldn't want to live the lives of bonobos. They're constantly clinging to their mothers' apron strings. They lack the ability to make decisions about their own fates, something that we and male chimpanzees practically consider our birthright. — Frans De Waal

Humans, bonobos, and chimpanzees comprise a subfamily called Homininae and will be called "hominines," while humans and other extinct members of our direct lineage will be referred to as "hominins" (Table 13.2). — Anonymous

MILFs rule Bonoboville — Susan Block

Bonobos are unique among great apes because they are not dominated by males. — Claudine Andre

It's important to remember that we evolved. Now, I know that's a dirty word for some people, but we evolved from common ancestors with the gorillas, the chimpanzee and also the bonobos. We have a common past, and we have a common future. — Louise Leakey

Bonobos, related to chimpanzees and native to the Congo, have been found to engage in French kissing. — Karen Shanor

Chimpanzees, bonobos, gorillas, and orangutans are thinking, self-aware beings, capable of planning ahead, who form lasting social bonds with others and have a rich social and emotional life. The great apes are therefore an ideal case for showing the arbitrariness of the species boundary. If we think that all human beings, irrespective of age or mental capacity, have some basic rights, how can we deny that the great apes, who surpass some humans in their capacities, also have these rights? — Peter Singer

Peace through Pleasure — Susan Block

Using information about animal behavior to justify social or political ideology is wrong . . . People need to be able to make decisions about their lives without having to worry about keeping up with the bonobos. — Marlene Zuk

Bonobo discipline involves being schooled in a gentler, more playful fashion. — Susan Block

Sex is flagrantly separated from reproduction in a few species, including bonobos and dolphins. — Jared Diamond

Researchers like Vanessa believe that the key to [bonobos] pacifism and remarkable group tolerance and cooperation is a matriarchal society: Whenever a male starts to bully or attack a female, she cries out and other females band together and discipline the males, re-establishing calm and cooperation. — Ashley Judd

Bonobos may have a brain that's a third the size of ours, but they're remarkably intelligent. — Claudine Andre

Bonobos are... ambassadors from a primordial world of peace through pleasure, inviting us in one kiss at a time. — Susan Block

Deep in the heart of the hot, wet African rainforest, there lives a tribe of peacemakers who share a multiplicity of pleasures and make a very special kind of love. South of the sprawling Congo River, in the midst of war-ravaged territory, some 2,000 miles from the arid Ethiopian desert where the oldest human fossils have been found, lies this lush and steamy jungle paradise, the only natural habitat of the bonobo. — Susan Block

Both bonobos and common chimps are as close to humans as foxes are to dogs. I don't know about you, but that's closer than I feel to some of my human relatives. — Susan Block

In a world divided by chimpophiles and bonobophiles, we all had a good laugh when Stephen peeled his banana. (62) — Frans De Waal

Who would you rather live with, a bunch of bonobos feeling good? Or chimpanzees eating each other's babies? Or humans waterboarding each other and destroying the planet? — Francine Prose

Being both more systematically brutal than chimps and more empathetic than
bonobos, we are by far the most bipolar ape. Our societies are never completely peaceful, never completely competitive, never ruled by sheer selfishness, and never perfectly moral. — Frans De Waal

Chimps cannot tell us anything about peaceful relations, because chimps have only different degrees of hostility between communities. Whereas bonobos do tell us something; they tell us about the possibility of having peaceful relationships. — Frans De Waal

Studies are one thing, but then there's just the way bonobos make you feel. They're so "almost-human" on so many levels that science doesn't even know how to test yet. Just look into any bonobo's big brown eyes, and you may well feel like you're connecting with a living version of the Missing Link. — Susan Block

Puritans, like poachers, shoot to kill your inner bonobo — Susan Block

My family tree spreads wide as well. I am a great ape, and you are a great ape, and so are chimpanzees and orangutans and bonobos, all of us distant and distrustful cousins.
I know this is troubling.
I too find it hard to believe there is a connection across time and space, linking me to a race of ill-mannered clowns.
Chimps. There's no excuse for them. — Katherine Applegate

Though bonobos tend to be a lot hairier than us - and they don't build houses or churches or Pentagons like we do - these primates look and act remarkably human. They often even go beyond the merely "human," and enter the realm of the truly "humane. — Susan Block

Female bonobos form a strong sisterhood. They rule through female solidarity. — Frans De Waal

Bonobos really violate a rule of nature where usually if you're bigger, you're going to be dominant. But here, females are actually smaller. But they're still not dominated by males because they work together. — Claudine Andre

In Bonoboville, the females gently but firmly rule the roost, keeping the males gentle and firm — Susan Block

What might happen if we could somehow reorient ourselves toward our more loving, bonobo side rather than our inner mad chimpanzee? — Susan Block

Male bonobos really don't fit the human male ideal. — Frans De Waal

Lana is a voluptuous brunette with a seductive smile and big, sparkling, cocoa eyes. Flirtatious and fun-loving, she has a couple of boyfriends, but enjoys her gal pals just as much, if not more. Though she loves to party and play practical jokes, she's a conscientious mom and respected leader in her community. Gentle yet assertive, she can be fierce when crossed, but she's also quick to forgive, turning hostility into harmony with remarkable empathy and a playful flair. In many ways, she's just like a lot of wonderful women we all know. But Lana is not a woman, nor even human. Lana is a bonobo. — Susan Block

We have a lot to learn from [bonobos], because they're a very egalitarian society and they're a very empathetic society. Sexual behavior is not confined to one aspect of their life that they set aside. It permeates their entire life. — Sue Savage-Rumbaugh

[Professor Kinnerton] Has the fact that we have about 97 percent of our DNA in common with chimpanzees escaped you? How can you still argue we are special and have a soul when we are so obviously animals? ... [Al Gleeson] With due respect sir, the 97 percent is precisely the problem. Are chimpanzees 97 percent of the way to splitting the atom? Are they 97 percent of the way to writing their first sonnet? Someone tittered at the back of the room. Are bonobos 97 percent of the way to putting the first bonobo on the moon? Is there an orangutan somewhere with a simian Mona Lisa 97 percent finished? — Peter Kazmaier

I squinted through the big window, a portal to another world, trying to get a better view of the primal love scene before us. All I could see was a mass of wriggling fur and finger-like toes until my eyes focused in on one male and two females kissing, ear-tonguing and giving each other enthusiastic oral sex, punctuated with occasional somersaults, smacks and nibbles on fruit and leaves. Sometimes they interacted as a threesome. Other times, two would cavort together, while the third played with herself, alternating between fingering and using a red rubber ball as a kind of sex toy, rubbing and bouncing it vigorously against her large pink vulva. — Susan Block

Bonobos don't really have that darker side. So that's where they could really help us is how could it be that a species that has a brain a third of the size of ours can do something that with all our technological prowess we can't accomplish? Which is to not kill each other. — Claudine Andre

Don't fall in love with a bonobo, because it's gonna die. — Anderson Cooper

Meet the bonobos, the rare and marvelous "make love not war" great apes who swing through the trees as well as with each other. — Susan Block

LOOK, DO YOU really want a detailed description of two sex robots going at it like a pair of bonobos on day release from celibacy camp in front of an audience of jaded aristocrats? — Charles Stross