Wild chimpanzees exchange meat for sex

The new study conducted at the Tai National Park in Cote d'Ivoire, West Africa, showed that female chimpanzees mated more frequently with males who shared meat with them than with those who never did.

It was not simply the case that males briefly shared meat with females who happened to be fertile, said the researchers. The meat sharing continued for long periods of time, not just when a female was in heat.

Researcher Dr Cristina Gomes, from the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany, said: 'Our results strongly suggest that wild chimpanzees exchange meat for sex, and do so on a long-term basis.


"A male chimp offers a piece of meat to a female and its infant in the Tai National Park in Ivory Coast, West Africa."

via