Hare and Ellington were two old men who lived in Kibale National Park in Uganda. They weren't related, but they made a good team. After a hunt, Ellington held out his arm, a common gesture among chimpanzees, to ask for food, and Hare gave him a piece of his meat. They spent days wandering through the forest together, and when separated, they maintained contact through loud vocalizations. When Ellington died, Hare suddenly changed and isolated himself from the group for weeks, as if he were grieving.
A few years later, some bottlenose dolphins showed their solidarity on the other side of the world, in Sarasota Bay (Florida, USA). A 58-year-old woman named Nicklo used to hunt near the coast, in a shallow area where there are many schools of fish. One day she appeared accompanied by another old woman to whom she was not related. They grouped the fish between the two and stunned them with their tails to eat them. This caught the researchers' attention because they rarely saw female dolphins hunting together. However, this became routine for Nicklo and his partner. They could simply have a working relationship, but they were often seen swimming together in other areas, as if they were just taking a walk.
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Charismatic animals like dolphins and chimpanzees tell us anecdotes about friendship that move us and become popular. However, it was not these species that led the scientific community to use the term “friendship” in studies of animal social relationships.
Science must be very careful with the terms it uses so that misunderstandings do not arise. When a new behavior is described, several names often come up until consensus is reached. Primates, for example, love newborns. They have a very common behavior that consists of approaching babies, smelling them and touching them, sometimes even going so far as to snatch them from their mother's hand. When this was first mentioned in scientific studies, terms such as “aunting” or “kidnapping” were used. The first had a positive connotation and the second a negative one, which is why it ended up being called infant handling.
At first, no academic dared to use the word friendship in his animal studies. They observed that individuals had distinct preferences when it came to relationships, but they spoke of close ties or relationships. Friendship was only spoken of in relaxed surroundings. When this word was included in a scientific article, it was italicized, as if this would protect the author or authors from accusations of anthropomorphism or lack of accuracy. Some scientists, wanting to laugh at themselves, used to call friendship the F-word (friendship), referring to the unnameable nature of the term.
In the early 1980s, the idea was established that human relationships are very different from those between animals. Humans formed unconditional friendships in which we gave something for nothing, while animals were like economic machines. They acted not through feelings of affection, but through “I'm helping you today because you'll help me tomorrow” or “I'm joining you out of convenience.” Therefore, their relationships were not worthy of being classified as friendship.
Baboons had a very complex social world with close relationships between individuals who were not always related to each other. Auscape/UIG (Getty Images)
It was an American anthropologist named Barbara Smuts who brought animal friendship out of the closet with her 1985 book Sex and Friendship in Baboons. The first studies on the social behavior of baboons began in Kenya in the 1970s. By measuring the time these monkeys spent close and grooming each other, they found that the baboons formed very close relationships with some females but not others. They were often related, but not always.
The data made it clear that baboons had a very complex social world. I saw this firsthand when I worked in Senegal and followed a group of Guinea baboons. This species has a different social life than the baboons found in Kenya, as it is the males who form strong relationships over long periods of time.
I remember once following a young man named Bela as he collected data on a smartphone. I was so focused on my phone that I didn't see a branch and tripped. I didn't fall to the ground, but I made a sudden movement that startled Bela and made her scream very loudly. Five seconds later I was surrounded by his best friends, three giant baboons, who began screaming and raising their eyebrows in a threatening gesture. They made it very clear to me that if I wanted to harm Bela, I had to deal with them first.
Today, animal friendship appears frequently in scientific articles. The widespread acceptance of the term is due to the fact that there is evidence that the relationships between humans and the rest of primates are quite similar. Like us, they too have friends.
It is important to emphasize that friendship is an adjustment. That is, it is very widespread because it provides survival and reproductive benefits. For example, a 1993 study showed that lower-class people gave birth to heavier babies when they had strong social connections. Conversely, baboons that are better integrated into the group are also more successful at raising their young.
Friends and evolutionary adaptation
It's good for all of us to have friends. Now, when two children become friends, they do not believe that this will improve their reproduction and their chances of survival. The same thing happens with other animals, their friendships have an adaptive function, but that does not mean that their actions may be motivated by emotions similar to ours.
In fact, monkeys seem to be pretty bad at keeping track of favors. Some authors have instead suggested that reciprocity in animal relationships is unconditional and based on emotions in the short term. These ideas are supported by studies indicating that a primate is more likely to help another if it has a close long-term relationship with it than if it has recently helped it.
At a physiological level, we know that the mechanisms that mediate relationships between humans and other animals are very similar. Oxytocin and vasopressin are the queens of social bonding. A 2007 study showed that the septal area of the human brain, which controls the release of oxytocin and vasopressin, is involved in the unconditional trust we place in our friendships. Interestingly, this area is highly preserved in terms of form and function of a variety of species.
This doesn't mean that animals experience their friendships the same way we do. Humans have highly developed social skills that allow us to deeply understand other people's perspectives, knowledge and feelings. Each species has its unique way of relating. By using the term “friendship” in animals, we are not denying this diversity, but rather accepting once again that we are not so different.
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