德国科学家经过长期观察发现，愿意与雌性黑猩猩分享肉食的雄性黑猩猩更容易受到前者的青睐，而且这并非一种短期行为。
德国马克斯·普朗克进化人类学研究所的科学家Cristina M. Gomes等4月8日在美国《公共科学图书馆·综合》（PLoS ONE）网络期刊上介绍说，他们对科特迪瓦某国家公园的49只黑猩猩进行长期研究后发现，愿意与异性分享肉食的雄性黑猩猩更容易获得雌性黑猩猩的欢迎，这种现象并非只发生在雌性黑猩猩发情期，而是雌性黑猩猩的长期行为模式。
雌性黑猩猩如何选择“对象”、雄性黑猩猩为何愿意将狩猎成果与异性分享等问题一直是动物学家研究的课题。针对人类狩猎采集社会的研究也表明，在狩猎方面技能较好的男性容易“找对象”并拥有较多后代。在动物世界是否也是如此呢？此前的很多研究一直缺少直接证据加以证明，德国研究人员的上述新发现为这种推测提供了佐证。
德国研究人员说，这一新发现表明，作为人类的近亲，黑猩猩可能也会从往事中总结经验、筹划未来。此外，这一研究也为早期人类社会关系的研究提供了参考。（生物谷Bioon.com）
生物谷推荐原始出处：
PLoS ONE，doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0005116，Cristina M. Gomes，Christophe Boesch
Wild Chimpanzees Exchange Meat for Sex on a Long-Term Basis
Cristina M. Gomes*, Christophe Boesch
Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Leipzig, Germany
Humans and chimpanzees are unusual among primates in that they frequently perform group hunts of mammalian prey and share meat with conspecifics. Especially interesting are cases in which males give meat to unrelated females. The meat-for-sex hypothesis aims at explaining these cases by proposing that males and females exchange meat for sex, which would result in males increasing their mating success and females increasing their caloric intake without suffering the energetic costs and potential risk of injury related to hunting. Although chimpanzees have been shown to share meat extensively with females, there has not been much direct evidence in this species to support the meat-for-sex hypothesis. Here we show that female wild chimpanzees copulate more frequently with those males who, over a period of 22 months, share meat with them. We excluded other alternative hypotheses to exchanging meat for sex, by statistically controlling for rank of the male, age, rank and gregariousness of the female, association patterns of each male-female dyad and meat begging frequency of each female. Although males were more likely to share meat with estrous than anestrous females given their proportional representation in hunting parties, the relationship between mating success and sharing meat remained significant after excluding from the analysis sharing episodes with estrous females. These results strongly suggest that wild chimpanzees exchange meat for sex, and do so on a long-term basis. Similar studies on humans will determine if the direct nutritional benefits that women receive from hunters in foraging societies could also be driving the relationship between reproductive success and good hunting skills.
