Female Bonobos Use Coalitions to Overturn Male-Dominated Hierarchies, Study Finds

How female bonobos team up to gain power over males

The key to keeping males in line? Joining forces.

Female Bonobos Ferociously Team Up To Assert Dominance Over Males

Learn more about female bonobo coalitions and how they team up to keep male bonobos in line.

Female bonobos keep males in check -- not with strength, but with solidarity

Female bonobos team up to suppress male aggression against them -- the first evidence of animals deploying this strategy. In 85% of observed coalitions, females collectively targeted males, forcing them into submission and shaping the group's dominance hierarchy. This is the first study to test drivers of female dominance in wild bonobos. The study examined 30 years of demographic and behavioral data across six wild bonobo communities. The study…

Female bonobos form wild ‘girl gangs’ to shut down stronger male aggression

New study shows how wild female bonobos outsmart larger males with unity, food control, and reproductive secrecy.

Girl power! Researchers find female bonobos work together to keep males in line

Drivers of female power in bonobos - Communications Biology

In mammals, female dominance over males is a rare phenomenon. However, recent findings indicate that even in species with sexual dimorphism biased towards males, females sometimes occupy high status. Here we test three main hypotheses explaining intersexual power relationships, namely the self-reinforcing effects of winning and losing conflicts, the strength of mate competition, and female coalition formation. We test these for bonobos (Pan pani…