Bonobos and their commitment to completing teamwork, just like humans.

The animal kingdom is full of surprises. The intelligence of some species startles and inspire humans to take technological development forward. Be it the flying skills of birds, the organizational skills of bees, or dogs' adaptation, animals have it all. One of the recent studies that have taken scientists by surprise is the teamwork and commitment of bonobos.

The bonobos, also known as pygmy chimps, are sadly on the endangered animal's list. They have a 98.7% DNA match with humans, making them our closest relatives in the wild. Like humans, they like maintaining a relationship with other groups of the same species but do engage in fights to declare supremacy.

Up until now, humans were given the credit of carrying responsibility and distributing it among their fellowmen. It does take a lot of calculation to see who can conduct the duty properly to keep the whole project going smoothly. But then the bonobos caught up with us and are seen grooming partners akin to completing group tasks.

Primate ecologist RaphaelaHeesen from Durham University and colleagues studied 15 of the endangered apes at a zoological park. The researchers interjected 85 examples of social tutoring, where one ape dressed another's fur and 26 occurrences of self-grooming or unsociable play.

The interludes were mostly caused by the keeper calling the apes for food or closing the gates.

Social grooming took up at least 80% of their time compared to self-grooming, which hardly took 50% of their day.

On studying the interruption pattern, the scientists realized that the bonobos usually returned to their partner after one minute. The bonobos have the tendency to take back the work that is left incomplete and see to it that they complete the joint task. Their vocalized and easy to understand gestures are what helps their partners communicate with them.

The whole group is divided into bonobos performing tasks in ranks. The higher ranking bonobos on guessing a breach of solo work signals the chips to go ahead and continue their work. Be it grooming, hunting or gathering, the bonobos are expert in the art of functioning in teams.

Indeed, you can't compare them to humans' complex minds who can multitask to the chimps. But the thing that we can't just let go of is how they perform their duties without the legal bindings and how well they execute it.