Female Apes In Congo Out-Hunted Males On Forest Antelope

Female Apes Made Most Identified Kills in Ten-Year Congo Study

Chimpanzee hunts make for dramatic nature footage, with packs of males chasing monkeys through the treetops. Bonobos, chimps’ close cousins, tell a different story. Over roughly a decade of watching wild bonobos in the Democratic Republic of Congo, researchers found that females caught a small forest antelope called the duiker almost three times as often as males did.

Researchers logged 415 successful kills between 2014 and 2023 at a research site called LuiKotale. In the 158 cases where the hunter could be identified, females made 99 of the catches. Tree-dwelling monkeys, riskier to chase than antelope, went to both sexes at nearly equal rates.

A report in Current Biology puts that pattern in a bigger context. Many researchers consider meat-eating a major driver of human evolution, which is why the question of who did the hunting matters. Scientists trying to work out how early humans hunted and shared meat often lean on chimpanzees, where adult males do most of the hunting, as a stand-in. Bonobos, another of humans’ closest living relatives, were thought to hunt on the fly, with individual females going after ground-dwelling prey. The field data from Congo complicate that picture.

Female Bonobo Hunting Outpaced Males Across Ten Years of Fieldwork

Two bonobo communities, called west and east, were followed near Salonga National Park. Both had grown used to people trailing them, which let observers watch hunts up close. Depending on the year, the west group had 14 to 20 adult females and 5 to 9 adult males, while the east group had 8 to 10 females and 4 to 6 males. Observers spent about 2,000 days with each group.

Naming the hunter was the hard part. Thick vegetation, group members spread across the forest, and the speed of a chase often hid the moment of capture. A bonobo got credit only if observers saw the catch, or could tell right afterward which animal held the prey. That standard left a known hunter in fewer than half of all captures. Males made 59 of those.

Female Bonobos Hunting Antelope Outdid Males While Monkey Catches Stayed Even

Prey split almost evenly: antelope made up 42 percent of captures and monkeys 43 percent, with birds, rodents, and other small animals making up the rest. One species, the red colobus monkey, accounted for more than three-quarters of the monkeys taken.

Among chimpanzees, researchers have proposed that females avoid risky hunts and stick to safer, ground-dwelling animals. Bonobo females did not follow that script. In the authors’ words, their results “do not support the risk-aversion hypothesis.”

Why females out-caught males on antelope is an open question. Antelope often survive for a while after capture, and their cries draw other bonobos running, which sparks a scramble for the meat. That may explain why males ended up with fewer of them. The authors also point to bonobo society, where females often work together to push males away from food. Female rank is hard to pin down, though, and was not directly tested. Every monkey and antelope hunt, 351 in all, ended with the meat being shared.

Neighboring Bonobo Groups Hunted Different Prey, and Female Age Mattered

Though neighbors, the two groups hunted very differently. West-community bonobos went after antelope roughly twice as often as monkeys, while the east community went after monkeys more than four times as often as antelope. Wetter or drier forest and the number of adult males on hand may play a part, but the evidence for each was too shaky to be sure. In the west, females out-hunted males on every kind of prey. In the east, they led on antelope but caught monkeys slightly less often than males.

Age mattered too. Female hunters averaged about 28 years old, and older females were more likely than males to catch both antelope and monkeys. In the west, females who caught monkeys averaged about 20 years old, compared with about 28 for those who caught antelope. The east showed a smaller gap, too small to rule out chance. Older females tend to rank higher, the authors note, so they may be better at holding onto an antelope once a crowd gathers. Why younger females leaned toward monkeys is murkier.

Male-Led Hunting May Not Be the Original Pattern Among Humans’ Closest Relatives

Researchers write that their results “caution against assuming male-biased hunting represents the ancestral condition.” In plain terms, the ancestors humans share with apes may not have hunted the way chimpanzees do. Two readings fit. A pattern in which both sexes hunt, as in bonobos, may be the older one, with male-dominated hunting arriving later. Or bonobo hunting could be a newer trait that developed as females gained social status. Neither idea was tested directly.

Models of early human hunting built on chimpanzees alone leave out a species where females made most identified kills. If females were making so many of the catches, they may have shaped who got fed, a point the authors say calls for a fresh look at meat sharing. One site cannot settle the question, but male-led hunting no longer looks like a safe default.

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