On the lighter side of the news.

Meat for sex fair to chimps
2009-04-09

BEIJING, April 9 (Xinhuanet) -- Human females may get offended at dates who expect a little something extra after they buy a steak dinner, but for chimpanzees, the exchange may be a fair one, according to findings in the Public Library of Science journal PLoS ONE as quoted by media reports Thursday.

Researchers found that female chimpanzees mate more frequently with males who often share meat with them.

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

"Males who shared meat with females doubled their mating success, whereas females, who had difficulty obtaining meat on their own, increased their caloric intake without suffering the energetic costs and potential risk of injury related to hunting."

Writing in the journal, Gomes and colleague Christophe Boesch said they watched chimps living in the Tai National Park in Ivory Coast.

"The meat for-sex hypothesis is a plausible explanation for male-female meat sharing in this species, as chimpanzees are highly promiscuous, they have a certain degree of female choice and hunters can usually control the sharing of their catch," they wrote.

Males were more likely to share meat with females whose bodies showed they were in a fertile period, but even excluding these couplings, it was clear that mating behaviour occurred more often between males and the females they were regularly sharing meat with.

Now Rose is wondering who's packin the most "meat"...

you HAD to go there didn't you??? i come back in the political threads from somewhere else and this is the welcome i get

Welcome back ...

I know where you been!!
I checked it out to.

shhhhhhhh...it's drivin's fault in here. he HAD to go there. and have you been spying on me mister???

Naw, just a quick glance and then closed my eyes.

i see those binoculars

i knew it was a handed down ritual

typical take the meat without paying the bill

is that a type of socialism

Let's all get Social!!

Barter system at it's best... does that mean that Chimps in fact have legalized prostitution?

I didn't expect to see so many folks up so early.
Good mornin' ya'll.

I'm a third shifter, I had to have my chicken and noodles before hopping on! Either way, I'm almost always up this late.

actually it was probably legal till others felt the need to control others and then it was probably still legal till organized religion tried to perfect the control of others

still up as well

never know when i may be here

Dang... poor hapless chimps...

yes what will they do and how will they survive without a controlling party