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Photo courtesy
http://www-personal.umich.edu/~phyl/bonobo.html
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Bonobos live mostly in a multimale/multifemale
fission-fusion society. Basically, what that means, is that they live in a
large groups of many males and females and when the group gets too large,
some will leave the group to form another group, or some will leave to join
an existing group. These groups are the most stable out of all groups. They
have a very fluid social structure, and the groups are mainly formed
depending on a family group. Occasionally they will also live in subgroups
called bisexual groups, consisting only of adult males and females (mostly
males), or groups with only adult females and their young. In bonobo society
however, there are rarely solitary individuals. The groups are found to be
anywhere from 20 to 120 individuals, but the average size is about 40
individuals (White, 1990).
Bonobos live in large home ranges (approximately 10 to 20 km) that overlap
with other groups. These home ranges contain plentiful food sources that
dictate many aspects of their society. The abundance of food determines the
size of their daily foraging groups (bonobos are diurnal and forage during
the day (Pygmy Chimpanzee, 2000)), as well as their sexual
behavior. These foraging groups are part of the larger
mulitmale/multifemale groups that will reconvene at night to build new nests
in the trees to sleep in. The larger groups that the bonobos are a part of
will not fight with other groups, since they are not territorial. However,
the larger groups will chase a smaller group away for resource purposes. In
most cases though, the groups try to avoid each other as much as possible
(White, 1992).
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