Bonobo, female (Wild Life Africa by Schleich)

Review and images by stemturtle; edited by bmathison1972

Schleich released a lovely bonobo, Pan paniscus (Schleich Wild Life #14875), in 2024. This review will compare the figure to the chimpanzee, Pan troglodytes, instead of describing it in great detail. A former name, pygmy chimpanzee, was a mistake, since the bonobo is a separate species from the chimp.

Long hair parted in the middle and pink lips are two traits that distinguish the bonobo from the chimpanzee. The lips on this figure are not painted pink, but there is a part in the hair. The face, hands, and feet are black from birth. These start out light colored for the chimpanzee before blackening with age. The brow ridge of the bonobo is not as heavy as the chimp’s. The nose is flat like a gorilla’s. The sitting pose does not draw our attention to the longer legs of the bonobo. Height is about 6.1 cm or 2.4 inches, which is a scale of about 1:11.8 for a 72 cm head-body length. There is a copyright date of ’22 on the bottom (difficult to photograph), so maybe this was originally intended to be a 2023 release?

Distribution is the rainforests of the Congo Basin of Central Africa, south of the Congo River. The IUCN considers the species endangered. We should value this ape as a source for insight about ourselves.

Breasts confirm that this figure is a female. Bonobo social structure is matriarchal. Female bonobos support each other to maintain peace, contrasted to the aggressive male dominance of the chimpanzee. Tension is largely managed by sexual interaction rather than by violence. Abundant fruit and leaves encourage sharing.

Seeing a video of this ape standing upright is like peeking into our evolutionary past. The bonobo could serve as a living model for our possible ancestors: Ardi, Ardipithecus ramidus, and Lucy, Australopithecus afarensis. Bonobos and chimpanzees are equally similar to us genetically, matching more than 98%. Perhaps that helps to explain why humans are capable of both altruism and conflict.

A walking figure of a bonobo was included in the Primates TOOB by Safari Ltd. in 2019, which was reviewed in this blog by bmathison1972. I hope that Schleich will eventually complete a family of bonobos by producing a male and a juvenile. A young bonobo with long side-whiskers would be especially appealing. I bought the female on Amazon.