Back in September, PLoS ONE [1] published an article (Chimpanzees Share Forbidden Fruit [2]), by Kimberley Hockings and colleagues, who found that male chimpanzees steal desirable fruits, like papayas, to impress their female counterparts, who trade sexual favours in return for a share of the spoils.
The article generated a lot of coverage in the media as science writers competed to come up with the best headline (you’ll have to guess which was our favourite). Some of the news stories included:
From the blogosphere:
Honourable mention: the parody, Chimp Pimps [17], at The Spoof! [18]
Of course, this is now old news, but while forbidden fruit is said to taste sweeter and spoil faster, this isn’t the case when it comes to the interest in and discussion of Hockings’s paper, which is still flourishing, four months after the paper’s publication.
The Animal Cognition Research Group at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology [19] in Leipzig, Germany, recently discussed the paper and posted their thoughts and observations as a series of comments on the Web version of the paper [20]. The referee's report [21] from the reviewer of the paper is also now available online.
There is certainly much food for thought here and you can join in the discussion yourself by creating an account [22] on the PLoS ONE journal site and posting your comments for others to read.
Is chimpanzee food sharing an example of food for sex? One of the most important transitions in human evolution may have been the incorporation of regular food sharing into the day to day ecology of our species or our ancestors. Although this has been ...
Is chimpanzee food sharing an example of food for sex? One of the most important transitions in human evolution may have been the incorporation of regular food sharing into the day to day ecology of our species or our ancestors....
A paper published back in September - Chimpanzees Share Forbidden Fruit by Hockings et al. is getting renewed attention these days. Rebecca Walton has compiled links to the recent media and blog coverage of the paper (including those by my...
Links:
[1] http://www.plosone.org/
[2] http://www.plosone.org/doi/pone.0000886
[3] http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/main.jhtml?xml=/earth/2007/09/11/eachimp111.xml
[4] http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/18/science/18obchim.html?ref=science
[5] http://environment.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn12633&feedId=online-news_rss20
[6] http://news.google.com/news/url?sa=t&ct=us/22-0&fp=46e939dcd9fd3556&ei=lGDpRpjGKI_sqgPtvoSVDQ&url=http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/technology/technology.html?in_article_id=481403&in_page_id=1965&cid=1120646648&sig2=OKf4JtZ86nrf7MrFK-N5FA
[7] http://blog.newsweek.com/blogs/labnotes
[8] http://blog.newsweek.com/blogs/labnotes/archive/2007/09/11/food-for-sex.aspx
[9] http://scienceblogs.com/gregladen/
[10] http://scienceblogs.com/gregladen/2008/01/chimpanzee_food_sharing.php
[11] http://scienceblogs.com/afarensis
[12] http://scienceblogs.com/afarensis/2008/01/21/chimps_cultivated_fruits_and_s/
[13] http://scienceblogs.com/laelaps/
[14] http://scienceblogs.com/laelaps/2008/01/forbidden_fruit.php
[15] http://primatology.net/
[16] http://primatology.net/2007/09/12/male-chimps-solicit-fruit-to-female-chimps-for-sex/
[17] http://www.thespoof.com/news/spoof.cfm?headline=s5i24600
[18] http://www.thespoof.com/
[19] http://www.eva.mpg.de/
[20] http://www.plosone.org/annotation/getCommentary.action?target=info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0000886
[21] http://www.plosone.org/annotation/listThread.action?inReplyTo=info:doi/10.1371/annotation/3a5ae229-5d24-4352-a4ea-068ce780a7a4&root=info:doi/10.1371/annotation/3a5ae229-5d24-4352-a4ea-068ce780a7a4
[22] https://register.plos.org/plos-registration/register.action
[23] http://scienceblogs.com/gregladen/2009/02/chimpanzee_food_sharing_1.php
[24] http://scienceblogs.com/gregladen/2008/01/chimpanzee_food_sharing.php
[25] http://scienceblogs.com/clock/2008/01/new_journal_club_on_plos_one_c.php