KOMPAS.com - Tidak hanya manusia yang suka bermain dengan boneka. Hewan seperti simpanse misalnya pun ternyata senang melakukannya. Demikian hasil penelitian ahli primata Richard Wrangham dan koleganya dari Harvard University.
Mereka menemukan bahwa simpanse suka bermain dengan boneka setelah ia melihat sosok simpanse betina di Taman Nasional Kibale Uganda. Di sana, seekor simpanse betina terlihat bermain dengan ranting pohon. Tapi, tidak asal memainkan ranting tersebut. Simpanse itu meletakkan ranting pohon di perutnya dan membawanya ke mana pun ia pergi.
Apa hubungannya ranting pohon dengan boneka? Secara fisik memang jauh berbeda, tapi cara sang simpanse memperlakukan ranting pohon mirip dengan cara gadis cilik saat memainkan boneka.
Perilaku simpanse semacam itu baru ditemukan pertama kalinya di alam liar. Karena tertarik, Wrangham dan koleganya pun melakukan pengamatan secara intensif. Mereka menghabiskan 12 jam per hari untuk meneliti, mengikuti jejak sebuah kelompok simpanse beranggotakan 68 ekor simpanse dan merekam perilakunya.
Dalam 40 persen kasus yang ditemui, simpanse meletakkan ranting di lipatan lengan atau lipatan paha. Mereka memainkan ranting itu bak memainkan boneka, selain juga menggunakannya untuk menyibak pepohonan dan menyerang satu sama lain.
Perilaku betina
Lebih dari tiga perempat simpanse yang membawa ranting pohon adalah betina. Dalam hasil penelitian yang dipublikasikan di jurnal Current Biology bulan ini, Wrangham mengatakan bahwa frekuensi betina memainkan ranting pohon 10 kali lebih sering daripada jantan.
Artinya, perilaku tersebut terikat gender, seperti boneka yang umumnya hanya dimainkan perempuan. Dengan adanya perilaku ini, peneliti menegaskan adanya kedekatan evolusioner antara manusia dan simpanse.
Namun, menanggapi hasil penelitian ini, Rebedca Jordan Young, ahli kelamin, gender dan seksualitas dari Barnard College, New York mengatakan, hasil penelitian belum cukup kuat untuk menyimpulkan bahwa perilaku tersebut terikat gender. Menurutnya, peneliti tak bisa begitu saja mengatakan perilaku itu terkait gender dan tanpa disertai dengan mekanisme meniru antara simpanse betina dewasa dan muda.
Chimpanzees Apparently Also Like Dolls
KOMPAS.com - not just humans who like to play with dolls. Animals such as chimpanzees for example, also was happy to do it. Thus the results of research primatologist Richard Wrangham and his colleagues from Harvard University.
They found that chimps like to play with dolls after she saw the figure of female chimpanzees in Kibale National Park, Uganda. There, a female chimpanzee seen playing with a tree branch. But, not just play these twigs. Chimpanzees were put tree limbs in her stomach and took him everywhere he went.
What does a tree branch with dolls? Physically, much different, but how to treat the chimpanzee branch similar to the way the little girl while playing dolls. Chimpanzee behavior such newly discovered first time in the wild. Being interested, Wrangham and his colleagues also conduct intensive observations. They spend 12 hours per day to research, follow the trail of a 68-member group of chimpanzees chimpanzees tail and recording behavior.
In 40 percent of the cases found, the chimpanzees put twigs in the folds of the arm or groin. They play it like a twig doll play, as well as use it to uncover the trees and attacking one another.
Female behavior\
Female behavior\
More than three-quarters of chimpanzees carrying tree branches are female. In research published in the journal Current Biology this month, Wrangham said that the frequency of females played a tree branch 10 times more frequently than males. That is, the behavior of gender bound, like a doll which is generally only played women. Given this behavior, the researchers confirmed the existence of evolutionary closeness between humans and chimpanzees.
However, responding to the results of this study, Rebedca Jordan Young, a sex, gender and sexuality from Barnard College, New York, said the study results are not strong enough to conclude that the behavior of gender bound. According to him, researchers can not just say that the behavior associated with gender and without any mechanism between chimpanzees imitate adult female and young.
