Bonobo Mothers Are Very Concerned About Their Sons’ Sex Lives

Martin Surbeck remembers the episode vividly. He was in the Democratic Republic of Congo’s LuiKotale rain forest, watching a group of bonobos, African apes that are closely related to chimpanzees. Two of them—Uma, a female, and Apollo, a young, low-ranking male—were trying to have sex. Camillo, the highest-ranked male in the group, caught wind of their liaison and tried to come between them. But Hanna, Apollo’s mother, rushed in and furiously chased Camillo away, allowing her son and his mate to copulate in peace.

This was just one of the many memorable incidents that Surbeck and his colleagues,but very rarely police the mating attempts of . He only worked out what was happening by collecting the bonobos’ poop, and sending the samples off to colleagues who sequenced the DNA within. Their analysis confirmed how the different bonobos were related, that mothers were repeatedly and actively improving their sons’ sex lives.