Chimps and gorillas form rainforest friendships

Paywall bypass: https://archive.ph/3pxOH

Interesting, on the one hand they don’t compete for precisely the same resources and terrain so there not in direct competition with each other. In particular there’s no competition between the males of the two species for females. On the other hand it’s not obvious that they gain from amicable social interactions, except perhaps the benefit of avoiding pointless and destructive competition that wouldn’t advantage either of them. Maybe for social animals, experiencing positive social interactions like this and the skills you learn from them can be a benefit in itself?

I think beyond the fact that they interact peacefully, the specifics of their interactions and their nature is good to have well documented. The unfortunate fact is these species* may* not be round forever and the more we learn about them when we have the opportunity the better, and there’s always the chance that understanding these animals better will help us preserve them for longer, in addition to what we might learn about our own nature and that of our common ancestors with these fascinating creatures.

* thanks for the fixes, autocorrect and posting from a phone at 3am aren’t a great combination.

Earlier discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33047525

It made me think: As humans, we are a very lonely species. There are no living beings of the same intellectual capacity as us other than ourselves. Chimps and gorillas have comparable intellectual capacities.

We can bond with cats, dogs, and other pets but they have much lower intellect than us. Imagine how cool it would be to have friends from different species with similar intellectual capacities to ours.

How else do we explain Neanderthal DNA in Denisovan derived humans?

Apes together strong.