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Bonobo monkeys have been seen trading food (fruits) for sex. What is new for me here is that they adopted a currency.
by chmike 16y ago
Bonobo monkeys have been seen trading food (fruits) for sex. What is new for me here is that they adopted a currency.
- helveticaman 16y agoBut that's just like buying a woman dinner. It's arguably about sharing a gift and having an experience. Money is a (perhaps small) step further.
- philwelch 16y agoQuibble: bonobos are apes, not monkeys.
- chmike 16y agoSorry, I don't understand your comment. I'm speaking french. What is the difference between apes and monkeys ?
- philwelch 16y agoBonobos, gorillas, chimpanzees, and orangutans are apes. Apes are very closely related to humans. Capuchins, marmosets, tamarins, baboons, and a host of other species are monkeys. Monkeys are more distantly related to humans. English and French are both imprecise languages. In formal classification, monkeys, apes, and humans are all primates. Furthermore, they are all of suborder Haplorrhini, infraorder Simiiformes. "New world monkeys" are of parvorder Platyrrhini, "old world monkeys", apes, and humans are of parvorder Catarrhini. Old world monkeys are within superfamily Cercopithecoidea, apes and humans are within superfamily Hominoidea. If you wanted to map the taxonomy to English, you'd probably say Platyrrhini and Cercopithecoidea are monkeys, while Hominoidea are apes. This implies that humans are apes, which is, at least scientifically, fairly accurate. Humans are not, however, monkeys.