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Chimpanzees Exchange Meat For Sex
the_therapist writes "A team from the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Germany, studied chimps in the Tai Forest reserve in Ivory Coast and discovered that chimpanzees enter into 'deals' whereby they exchange meat for sex. Among the findings are that 'male chimps that are willing to share the proceeds of their hunting expeditions mate twice as often as their more selfish counterparts.' They also found this to be 'a long-term exchange, so males continue to share their catch with females when they are not fertile, copulating with them when they are.'"
This behavior has been quite well documented in bonobos, which until recently were considered chimps or dwarf chimps. I'm not sure what makes this article newsworthy, except that we all like to read about meat and sex...
Try reading a copy of "The Hunting Ape" by Stanford... It's fascinating in covering hunting and culture in apes (including trading food for sex).
From what I've read, I'd also disagree with the article that meat is so valuable to their diet. They LOVE meat, but other research suggests that the amount of energy expended on hunting compared to what they gain in protein/food is a net negative. Hunting is also high risk and includes getting injured in the process.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/05/magazine/05FREAK.html
http://scienceblogs.com/purepedantry/2007/05/monkey_economics.php
http://blog.wired.com/wiredscience/2008/07/monkeys-practic.html
These links all point to the story, but not to any sort of brief from the research conducted by Keith Chen
http://www.som.yale.edu/faculty/keith.chen/
Anybody know where that is?