This proves they are capable of altruism

Jan 27, 2010 10:01 GMT  ·  By

For a long time, theologists and some anthropologists have been arguing that a host of elements makes humans unique and different from animals. But, over the past decades, all of these so-called differences have been collapsing one by one. It has been recently proven that chimpanzees can be altruistic as well, to the extent that they are able to adopt orphan chimps as their own. The new investigation has looked at the cases of 18 young chimps that were taken in by foster mothers after they were left alone in the world.

What was amazing, the researchers say, was the fact that males and females were discovered to engage in this type of behavior in equal amounts. The foster parents dedicated impressive amounts of time to the youngsters, and the scientists say that no gains were immediately made obvious for the parents. These cases were found in the Tai forest, in the Ivory Coast, a West African nation. The adoptive parents were also found to dedicate a lot of their own energy to protecting the young ones from harm, just like natural parents would have done.

“I don't know of any other cases of unrelated orphans being adopted,” Christophe Boesch, who has been the leader of the new research, explains. He holds an appointment with the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, in Germany, LiveScience reports. The expert adds that most of the young chimps that were adopted had lost their natural parents to causes such as predation or injuries, and that they had no one else to care for them. The work breaks new grounds in proving that chimps are capable of altruism, in the sense in which this behavior is defined as the selfless, costly expenditure of resources for another, without any reward.

“Based on some of the captive studies, you see very strong claims that what makes humans special is this ability to cooperate and be altruistic toward one another. In that sense the observation of Tai forest requires a big shift in our thinking about what makes us human, in the sense that this ability to be altruistic is something that we also see in chimpanzees,” Boesch reveals. “Some adoptions of orphans by unrelated adults lasted for years and imply extensive care towards the orphans. This includes being permanently associated with the orphan, waiting for it during travel, providing protection in conflicts and sharing food with the orphan.”