Apes Have Food, Will Share For A Social Payoff People have been
sharing food with strangers since ancient days, offering up the
household's finest fare to mysterious travelers. Think Abraham
and the three men of Mamre in the Bible and the folks who take
in strangers after natural disasters like Hurricane Sandy. That
deep tradition of generous hospitality has long been thought
uniquely human. If so, then bonobos, those gregarious African
apes, may be more like us than we thought. "The pairs that are
unfamiliar with each other are the ones that shared most often,"
says JingZhi Tan, a graduate student at Duke University who
tested bonobos' penchant for sharing food and discovered that
they not only share with strangers, they even offer their fruit
and nuts to an unfamiliar bonobo faster than they will feed one
they know well. Bonobos, like humans, are acutely social, and
often eat together. With both species, it works. Children and
other vulnerable relatives get fed, social ties are strengthened
and alliances fo