Chimpanzees help each other on request but not voluntarily
Wednesday, October 14, 2009 - 09:49
in Biology & Nature
The evolution of altruism has long puzzled researchers and has mainly been explained previously from ultimate perspectives -I will help you now because I expect there to be some long-term benefit to me. However, a new study by researchers at the Primate Research Institute (PRI) and the Wildlife Research Center (WRC) of Kyoto University shows that chimpanzees altruistically help conspecifics, even in the absence of direct personal gain or immediate reciprocation, although the chimpanzees were much more likely to help each other upon request than voluntarily. The findings are published October 14 in the open-access, peer-reviewed journal PLoS ONE.