Story highlights Carl Safina: 2 million years ago, evolution gave world a gift, but humans didn't get it

Chimps (male-dominated, aggressive, and genetically similar to humans) and bonobos (female-dominated, friendly, sexy) diverged

Safina: I'd like to think humans have capacity to retrieve bonobo's happy, peaceful vibe

Carl Safina is the Endowed Professor for Nature and Humanity at Stony Brook University, where he co-chairs the Alan Alda Center for Communicating Science and runs the not-for-profit Safina Center. His books include Beyond Words; What Animals Think and Feel. The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of the author.

(CNN) Something like 2 million years ago, evolution gave the world a gift that's still sitting there wrapped in a bow. The problem is that it was delivered to the wrong address; we humans didn't get it.

The gift has to do with the human family tree, whose ancient trunk and long branches have given rise to many species of ape, many of them long vanished and some, like chimpanzees and gorillas, still with us.

Carl Safina

The pivotal evolutionary moment we're concerned with today happened in Africa, when the Congo River formed, thoroughly separating one population of proto-chimpanzees on its south bank. Those to the north became the modern chimps, Pan troglodytes, those to the south became Pan paniscus, bonobos.

And while they look so similar that they weren't recognized as different species until the 1920s, a lot changed. Chimpanzees (whose DNA is nearly identical to humans) are often nasty and competitive. Bonobos are famously friendly and sexy with one another. This striking difference has to do with the status claimed by females.

Chimpanzee groups are male-dominated. Chimp dominance is about monopolizing fertile females. While they're dominant, dominant males father a disproportionate number of young. That's the main driver of male competitiveness and aggression. Chimps are jealous, ambitious, sometimes violent even within their group. Male chimps form coalitions to topple dominant males, then share power and privileges.

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