When your kids misbehave, maybe you tell them to stop acting like a bunch of chimps. Well, that would be an insult to the familiar common chimp, Pan troglodytes, which actually grows up pretty fast. Now bonobos, the other chimp species, or Pan paniscus, enjoy horsing around well into adulthood. And a study in the journal Current Biology suggests that their laid-back development keeps bonobos forever young.
The two chimp species are closely related, but when it comes to behavior, there’s little resemblance. While common chimps can be aggressive and incredibly self-serving, bonobos are playful and even prone to sharing, traits that common chimps display mainly when they’re young.
What drives the di
