Kanzi, 31-year-old Food Cooking Bonobo Chimpanzee

• Social behavior
Most studies indicate that females have a higher social status in bonobo society. Aggressive encounters between males and females are rare, and males are tolerant of infants and juveniles. A male derives his status from the status of his mother. The mother–son bond often stays strong and continues throughout life. While social hierarchies do exist, rank plays a less prominent role than in other primate societies.
The limited research on bonobos in the wild was taken to indicate that these matriarchal behaviors may be exaggerated by captivity, as well as by food provisioning by researchers in the field.
Bonobo party size tends to vary because the groups exhibit a fission–fusion pattern. A community of approximately 100 will split into small groups during the day while looking for food, and then will come back together to sleep. They sleep in nests that they construct in trees.