Similarities Between Bonobos And Chimpanzees

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Comparing great ape gesturing across species has been limited to specific gestures in past studies, without questioning whether the gestures share the same meanings. Bonobos and chimpanzees are closely related species within the great ape family, and both use gestures to communicate. Although researchers have recently catalogued the meanings of chimpanzee gestures, little is known about the gesture meanings of bonobo gestures. The bonobo gestures overlap approximately 90% with the chimpanzee, but these similarities may not extend to the meanings of the gesture. Scientists determined the meanings of bonobo gestures by analyzing the outcomes of gesturing that apparently satisfy the signaler. They then used a randomization …show more content…
Nevertheless, more research is necessary to determine how such gestures and gesture meanings are acquired. But simply using the same actions does not mean that chimpanzees and bonobos share a communication system and would be able to understand one another. Only if bonobo and chimpanzee gestures share the same meanings can they be said to share the same communication system. Ultimately, the researchers concluded that bonobos, like chimpanzees, are using gestures to achieve distinct outcomes. Biological inheritance is one possible explanation for this overlap, but the researchers recognize that similar gestures and meanings may have emerged through another acquisition mechanism, such as imitation. Bonobos and chimpanzees also have similar environmental and anatomical constraints that may limit the available gestures and desired outcomes. More research is required to determine the precise mechanism behind the overlap of gesture meanings. It is probable that this pattern of gestures and meanings was also used by the last common ancestor we shared with two Panspecies and would have been able to use and understand most of the gestures of modern bonobos and chimpanzees. Another explanation is that the elaborate shared Pan gestures and meanings could have evolved after diverging from the hominin lineage. If scientists can determine if humans share or understand these great ape gestures, they can determine which of the two possible explanations is more likely an important contribution to the evolution of language, but it is unclear how gestures as were clearly manifested in nonhuman great apes relates to gestures as they manifest in humans alongside thought and language. In the future, researchers would ideally be able to compare the meanings of gestures among a range of primate species to determine if more closely related species have more similar gestures. Understanding this ‘baseline’ of
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