First, it should be noted in the paper that chimpanzees’ closest living relative, and a species just as closely related to humans as chimpanzees, the bonobo, has been shown to share non-meat food in numerous contexts both in captivity and the wild. Thus, this degree of sharing behavior is not unprecedented in the genus Pan.
It is stated in the abstract that the sharing observed “primarily” consisted of males allowing others to take food that they possessed (aka: “passive sharing”). We are curious what other types of sharing events occurred, and at what frequency.
