Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Study: Chimpanzees Have Evolved To Kill Each Other

Posted by samzenpus on from the battle-of-the-apes dept.

sciencehabit writes A major new study of warfare in chimpanzees finds that lethal aggression can be evolutionarily beneficial in that species, rewarding the winners with food, mates, and the opportunity to pass along their genes. The findings run contrary to recent claims that chimps fight only if they are stressed by the impact of nearby human activity—and could help explain the origins of human conflict as well.

6 of 224 comments (clear)

  1. No surprise by msobkow · · Score: 3, Informative

    Most animals fight for mates. The only reason they don't kill each other is it's tougher for them to be lethal about it. But if a moose could head-butt another moose into oblivion to win a mate, I've no doubt it would do it.

    --
    I do not fail; I succeed at finding out what does not work.
    1. Re:No surprise by penguinoid · · Score: 5, Informative

      Fighting for mates is always one vs one, winner take all, and yes they are trying to kill their opponent.

      Not true. In many animals, fights are intentionally non-lethal. Much like a fistfight, when both have knives. But if one unsheathes their claws (or whatever real weapon), then the other will too and they both run the risk of being maimed or killed. This works because the non-lethal dominance competition correlates pretty well with what would happen if they were fighting for real.

      --
      Don't waste your vote! Vote for whoever you want, unless you live in a swing state it won't matter anyways
    2. Re: No surprise by PvtVoid · · Score: 3, Informative

      There is no such thing as "right" or "wrong" in nature and no delusions of morality can change that.

      Don't be silly. Traits such as altruism, empathy, and a sense of justice are also evolutionarily advantageous, and have just as much of a Darwinian origin as dominance and brute force.

  2. Re:Recent claims by whom? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    What a load of PC "humans are the only baddies in the world" bollocks.

    Chimpanzees have a well documented history of intra-group hierarchical violence, violence against females and extra-group murdering raids. This is nothing new. Anthropologists have known this stuff for decades.

    Dolphins too. Including infanticide of a rival's offspring. Raping of females, its a gang thing too as accomplices restrict the females ability to flee.

  3. Known for a long time by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    You see this from the anti-hunting and lunatic PETA crowd. "Humans are the only species that kill for pleasure or kill for reasons other than survival". Bill Maher (PETA member) said it several times last season of his Real Time show. Yet everything from orca whales to monkeys to domestic cats kills for reasons other than day-to-day survival.

    They kill for fun, for the adrenaline rush, for sport, for territory, and sometimes simply out of instinct or curiosity. Cats leave trophies on their owners' back porches. They'll kill birds and mice and even bats and then leave the dead body for their owner to find. Killer whales just slaughter packs of seals for fun. Often times just killing them and not even eating them. Some animals are so naturally deadly like sharks that they cannot help killing something by simply "test" biting an animal to see if its good food. A shark bites a human but realizes the flesh is poor and there are too many bones, so it backs off for good, yet the human is dead because half his stomach and leg were chewed off entirely by the shark.

  4. Re:Recent claims by whom? by Spy+Handler · · Score: 2, Informative

    What the tree huggers will find even more horrifying than chimp warfare is how lions kill baby lions.

    True story. When the alpha male of a lion pride is challenged by another male lion and loses, the new lion takes over the pride. This happens inevitably as the the former alpha lion ages. Now the new head lion will often KILL all the lion cubs in the pride. Not because he's hungry, but because he doesn't like the fact that the baby lions are not his.