Sunday, September 22, 2013

Sex at dawn

I'm rereading this, well, seminal book.

This snippet:

Our DNA differs from that of chimps and bonobos by roughly 1.6%, making us closer to them than a dog is to a fox, a white-handed gibbon to a white-cheeked crested gibbon, an Indian elephant to an African elephant or, for any bird-watchers who may be tuning in, a red-eyed vireo to a white-eyed vireo

Yet, when it comes to monogamy, we are routinely compared to gibbons, who conveniently happen to be monogamous.  But they are rather dim compared to us, chimps and bonobos,  and are also much less close relatives, diverging from our evolutionary line over 20 million years ago, compared with 5 million for bonobos and chimps.  Chimps and bonobos are, meanwhile, emphatically not monogamous.

An altogether fascinating book.

See also:

    Our Cheatin' Hearts
    Drives
    Normal Plus
    Friends
    Big Day Coming

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