Primatologist Isabel Behncke — What We Can Learn from Bonobos and Chimpanzees, Lessons from Sex and Play, Walking 3,000 Kilometers Through The Heart of Darkness, The Ape and The Sushi Master, and More (#598)
Illustration via 99designs“Play prepares you for the future.”
— Isabel Behncke
Isabel Behncke (@IsabelBehncke) is a field primatologist and applied evolutionary ethologist who studies social behavior in animals (including humans) to understand our urgent challenges with each other and the planet.
Isabel grew up at the foothills of the Andes mountains in Chile, where she developed a life-long love for nature and wildness as well as culture and the arts. An explorer-scientist, she is the first South American to follow great apes in the wild in Africa. She walked more than 3,000 km (~1864 miles) in the jungles of Congo for her field research observing the social lives of wild bonobo apes, who, together with chimpanzees, are our closest living relatives. Isabel documented how bonobos play freely in nature and has extended this research to study how human apes play — at Burning Man, other festivals, and in everyday life. Isabel has observed how play is at the root of creativity, social bonding, and healthy development, findings that have relevance in education, innovation, complex risk assessments, and freedom.
Isabel holds a BSc in Zoology and an MSc in Nature Conservation, both from University College London, an MPhil in Human Evolution from Cambridge University, and a PhD in Evolutionary Anthropology from Oxford University. She has won several distinctions for her public communication and knowledge integration, which ranges in formats from TED, WIRED, the UN, BBC, and Nat Geo, to rural schools in Patagonia and traveling buses of schoolchildren in Congo. She is a senior fellow of the Gruter Institute, a TED fellow, and currently advises the Chilean government, working on long-term strategies in science, technology, innovation, and knowledge for Chile’s President. She can be found in Chile and New York City.
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Listen onApple Podcasts[image error]Listen onSpotify[image error]Listen onOvercast#598: Primatologist Isabel Behncke — What We Can Learn from Bonobos and Chimpanzees, Lessons from Sex and Play, Walking 3,000 Kilometers Through The Heart of Darkness, The Ape and the Sushi Master, and MoreThis episode is brought to you by LMNT! What is LMNT? It’s a delicious, sugar-free electrolyte drink mix. I’ve stocked up on boxes and boxes of this and usually use it 1–2 times per day. LMNT is formulated to help anyone with their electrolyte needs and perfectly suited to folks following a keto, low-carb, or Paleo diet. If you are on a low-carb diet or fasting, electrolytes play a key role in relieving hunger, cramps, headaches, tiredness, and dizziness.
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What was your favorite quote or lesson from this episode? Please let me know in the comments.
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Want to hear an episode with another brilliant Chilean in search of what the natural world can teach us? Have a listen to my conversation with mycologist Giuliana Furci in which we discuss escaping political persecution, what makes Chilean mycology so unique, discovering new species in the wild, befriending Jane Goodall, the importance of letting things rot, and much more.
#525: Giuliana Furci on the Wonders of Mycology, Wisdom from Jane Goodall, Favorite Books, and the World’s Largest FungariumSELECTED LINKS FROM THE EPISODEConnect with Isabel Behncke:Twitter | Facebook | Instagram
Isabel Behncke: Evolution’s Gift of Play, from Bonobo Apes to Humans | TED 2011Isabel Behncke: What Can Bonobos Teach Us About Play? | TED Radio HourPlay in the Peter Pan Ape | Current BiologyChimps and Bonobos | Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary AnthropologyEthology | WikipediaKonrad Lorenz’s Imprinting Theory | Simply PsychologyB.F. Skinner’s Operant Conditioning | Simply PsychologyConsilience | Merriam-WebsterConsilience: The Unity of Knowledge by Edward Osborne Wilson | AmazonProject Nim | Prime VideoEvolution | Stanford Encyclopedia of PhilosophyKing Lear by William Shakespeare | AmazonLunar Society of Birmingham | WikipediaEx Omnia Conchis: Darwin and His Beloved Barnacles | Scientific American Blog NetworkThe Origin of Species by Charles Darwin | AmazonWho Are the Brahmins? | ThoughtCo.The Invention of Nature: Alexander von Humboldt’s New World by Andrea Wulf | AmazonThe Voyage of the Beagle by Charles Darwin | AmazonCorrespondence Deserving of a Wider Audience | Letters of NoteLetters of Note: Correspondence Deserving of a Wider Audience by Shaun Usher | AmazonSanta Fe InstituteNatural Selection & Sexual Selection: An Illustrated Introduction | Cornell Lab of OrnithologyNiche Construction: The Neglected Process in Evolution by F. John Odling-Smee, Kevin N. Laland, and Marcus W. Feldman | AmazonWhat is Niche Construction? | Kevin Laland and Lynn ChiuThe Complex Alternative: Complexity Scientists on the COVID-19 Pandemic | SFI PressWe Shape Our Tools, and Thereafter Our Tools Shape Us | Quote InvestigatorHistory of the Congo River | LiveScienceWhere Do Chimpanzees Live? | African Wildlife FoundationWhere Do Bonobos Live? | African Wildlife FoundationSome Apes Jane Goodall Studied Fought a Years-Long War | AV ClubJane | National Geographic Documentary FilmsLake Tanganyika | Google MapsWhere’s Waldo? by Martin Handford | AmazonHeart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad | AmazonThe Goodness Paradox: The Strange Relationship Between Virtue and Violence in Human Evolution by Richard Wrangham | AmazonThe Human Swarm: How Our Societies Arise, Thrive, and Fall by Mark W. Moffett | AmazonFemale Bonobos Shut Down Violent Males. Here’s What Humans Can Learn from Them. | UpworthyHow to Live Like a Rock Star (or Tango Star) in Buenos Aires… | Tim FerrissWhy Some Mammals Kill Babies of Their Own Kind | Smithsonian MagazineDon’t Sleep with Mean People | Baba BrinkmanSexual Dimorphism | Wikipedia“The Truth Is Rarely Pure and Never Simple.” -Oscar Wilde | GoodReadsNaturalistic Fallacy | Logically FallaciousCongo-Brazzaville: Republic of the Congo | Nations Online ProjectKinshasa: Democratic Republic of the Congo | Nations Online ProjectOxford Handbook of Tropical Medicine | AmazonPrimate Research Institute (PRI) | Kyoto UniversityWamba, Luo Reserve | WikipediaThe Ape and the Sushi Master: Cultural Reflections of a Primatologist by Frans De Waal | AmazonShinto | Japan GuideSweet Potato Washing Revisited: 50th Anniversary of the Primates Article | SpringerLinkMorphogenetic Fields of Body and Mind | Quantum UniversityAttentional Bias | Verywell MindScientific Heretic Rupert Sheldrake on Morphic Fields, Psychic Dogs and Other Mysteries | Scientific American Blog NetworkJiro Dreams of Sushi | Prime VideoWatch a Coyote and Badger Hunt Their Prey Together | SmithsonianThe 4-Hour Workweek: Escape 9-5, Live Anywhere, and Join the New Rich by Tim Ferriss | AmazonIt’s the Economy, Stupid | WikipediaNext of Kin: My Conversations with Chimpanzees by Roger Fouts and Stephen Tukel Mills | AmazonKanzi: The Ape at the Brink of the Human Mind by Sue Savage-Rumbaugh | Amazon25 Amazing Ways Animals Communicate That You Never Knew About | Best LifeAustin Bats Watching Guide | Merlin TuttleAcroYoga InternationalOf Wolves and Men by Barry Lopez | AmazonWhat Is Meant by Native Americans and Some Wolf Biologists Referring to a ‘Conversation of Death’ between Wolves and Wild Prey Animals? | QuoraHow the Drunken Monkey Hypothesis Explains Our Taste for Liquor | The AtlanticSHOW NOTESNote from the editor: Timestamps will be added shortly.
Baco and JiroWhat is an applied evolutionary ethologist?Lorenz vs. SkinnerThe brilliance of consilienceHumboldt vs. Darwin and the origins of evolutionary thinkingRecent revolutionary thoughts about evolutionComplexity and niche constructionWhat’s more fun: a barrel of chimpanzees or a barrel of bonobos?Chimpanzee geographyMagnificent bonobosFemale mammal problems and solutionsSexual dimorphismAvoiding naturalistic fallaciesHow accurate is it to call the Congo the Heart of Darkness?Why are the Japanese so interested in animal behavior?Potato-washing monkeysWhy do breakthroughs seem to come in clusters?Animals at play: the adaptive joker hypothesisThe overlap between flow states and playWhat the natural world can teach humans about optimizing playThe everlasting tango between energy and timePost-pandemic playHow much do we understand about the way animals communicate?The drunken monkey hypothesisParting thoughtsMORE ISABEL BEHNCKE QUOTES FROM THE INTERVIEW“Play prepares you for the future.”
— Isabel Behncke
“Time is an incredibly democratizing force, because you and an earthworm have 24 hours in the day. That’s a fixed budget, which means that there’s this constant interplay, tango or martial art, between your energy budget and your time budget. How you buy time or you use time is in interaction with your energy budget.”
— Isabel Behncke
“There’s something about really putting yourself in the feet, and the wings, and the mind of another animal as much as you can.”
— Isabel Behncke
“Evolution really is about how all life is related and how all life evolves. Everything has an origin and, like King Lear said, ‘Nothing comes from nothing.'”
— Isabel Behncke
“Being a female mammal is expensive.”
— Isabel Behncke
