![]() To pick up on these behaviors, the team studied hree babies of differing species through videos taken over a number of months. ![]() Such gestures, which seemed to be innate in all three species, precede and eventually lead to the development of language in humans, the researchers say. They also raise their arms up, a motion indicating that they want to be picked up, in the same manner. Members of all three species reach with their arms and hands for objects or people, and point with their fingers or heads. Using video analysis, a team of UCLA researchers found that human, chimpanzee and bonobo babies make similar gestures when interacting with caregivers. Nonetheless, certain basic things-such as the urge to cry out in pain, an increase in blood pressure when feeling anger, even shrugging when we don’t understand something-cross cultures.Ī new study, published today in the journal Frontiers in Psychology, compares such involuntary responses, but with an added twist: Some observable behaviors aren’t only universal to the human species, but to our closest relatives too-chimpanzees and bonobos. This hypothesis didn’t quite pan out-last year, researchers poked a hole in the idea by showing that the expression of emotions such as anger, happiness and fear wasn’t universal (PDF). In the 1872 book The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals, the naturalist argued that people from different cultures exhibit any given emotion through the same facial expression. However, it does give insight into why females may take leave during their pregnancy-to protect their babies from being eaten.Thirteen years after the release of On the Origin of Species, Charles Darwin published another report on the evolution of mankind. They also weren't sure why Devota had the baby in front of the others, although they speculate that she might have been a first-time-mom and not known any better.ĭarwin's consumption of his group-mate's infant may have been a rare occurrence. Researchers also questioned the nutritional value of the baby's body, as Darwin had severe diarrhea right after consuming it. The researchers were not able to obtain DNA samples from Darwin and the baby to determine if they were related. The unexpected cannibalism event left several questions unanswered. A female with a someone else's baby won't be willing to mate, meaning she'll spend time raising someone else's offspring instead of yours. A male might want to kill an infant in his own group to make the female ready to mate again. Yet eating one's own species can have some survival-driven motives, Schutt says. He explained that chimpanzees have been occasionally observed cannibalizing infants of other groups, but not their own. "Cannibalism is extremely widespread across nature, but it's pretty rare in primates, chimps notwithstanding," Bill Schutt, author of Cannibalism: A Perfectly Natural History, tells Newsweek. Nishie was one of the authors of the study.Īnd such behavior is extremely rare among these animals. "Infanticide and cannibalism impose large reproductive costs on females and fathers of infants, so theoretically, effective counterstrategies should evolve to avoid such costs," says Hitonaru Nishie, an anthropology researcher at Kyoto University, in an email to Newsweek. The researchers found that females who take a break from the group for reasons other than pregnancy spend less time away than those who leave specifically to deliver.Ĭannibalizing an infant is a bad idea. Typically, female chimps leave their family group when they are ready to give birth, and they deliver alone. The researchers were studying the lengths of "maternity leaves" among chimps. ![]() The observation appeared in a case study published in The American Journal of Physical Anthropology in September. Either way, he then climbed a tree and consumed most of the infant's body. The researchers weren't able to see if the baby had been born dead or if Darwin killed it when he ate it. The male ran away from the group, clutching the infant. It was so sudden that the mother didn't even have a chance to hold her infant. In a flash, an older male named Darwin ran to her and snatched the baby away. Until that moment, the scientists didn't even know that she was pregnant. On a rainy day in the mountains, one chimpanzee named Devota suddenly gave birth in front of the group. ![]() In December 2014, scientists were studying a group of chimpanzees at Mahale Mountains in Tanzania. This behavior has never before been documented by scientists, who say it could explain why female chimpanzees normally hide themselves away during the late stages of pregnancy. A male chimpanzee has been observed snatching a seconds-old newborn, then eating it. ![]()
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