Some serious proof has been uncovered by the Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Germany.

The group has learned that wild female chimpanzees copulate more frequently with males who share meat with them over long periods of time. In other words, men that share, get it more often. (Can you imagine the guy sitting out in the wild counting how many times Rosy the Ape copulated this month?)

Zakayo, the oldest alpha male chimpanzee in Uganda

Scientists (ahem) have long puzzled about this. They believe that men who are more successful hunters get more wives and a larger number of offspring. Let’s see. Men who do their jobs well get better wives. And people study this over while sitting in bushes? Come on!

Studies on wild chimpanzees show that male hunters share meat (not that meat) with females who did not participate in the hunt. One hypotheses proposed is meat-for-sex. But evidence doesn’t really support the claim though males, both humans and chimpanzees want the support.

In research conducted in the Tai National Park, Coted’Ivoire, it was found that females copulate more frequently with males who share meat with them on at least one occasion. Males who never shared never had sex. Well, duh!!

Gomes said: “Our results strongly suggest that wild chimpanzees exchange meat for sex, and do so on a long-term basis. Males who shared meat with females doubled their mating success, whereas females, who had difficulty obtaining meat on their own, increased their caloric intake, without suffering the energetic costs and potential risk of injury related to hunting.”

“Previous studies might not have found a relationship between mating success and meat sharing because they focused on short-term exchanges; or perhaps because in those groups access to females was driven by male coercion so females rarely chose their mating partners,” she added.

The conclusion: “Our findings add to the ever-growing evidence suggesting that chimpanzees can think in the past and the future and that this influences their present behavior.”

So, “where’s my meat?”

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Anjana is a two year old chimpanzee that plays a surrogate mother role for two 21 days old white tiger cubs that had to be separated from their mother due to safety reasons, when a hurricane flooded their sanctuary.

However, that’s not the only case. China York the care taker at The Institute of Greatly Endangered Species in South Carolina, along with the help of Anjana, who has been with her ever since the day she was born. Together they take care of many such animal babies

“Anjana has been with China, side by side, ever since she was born and has joined her in caring and raising baby animals,” said Dr Bhagavan, founder of TIGERS. She began copying everything that China did, so this is how her caring instinct was born. Today, the motherly chimpanzee bottle feeds these babies and forms a close bonding with them making them feel as though she was their own mother.

Images copyright Barry Bland @ Barcroft Media