image source, Getty Images
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- Author, Helen Briggs
- Author title, Environment Correspondent, BBC
A study that examined the monogamous lifestyles of various species found that humans are a bit like meerkats when it comes to mating.
In our love lives, we are more like these social and close-knit mongooses than our primate cousins, a classification of monogamy developed by scientists suggests.
With 66% monogamy, humans score surprisingly well, far better than chimpanzees and gorillas and on par with meerkats.
However, we are by no means the most monogamous creatures.
First place goes to the California mouse, a rodent that forms inseparable bonds throughout its life.
image source, Getty Images
“There is an elite league of monogamy that comfortably accommodates humans, while the vast majority of other mammals take a much more promiscuous approach to mating,” said Mark Dyble, a researcher at the University of Cambridge’s Department of Archeology.
In the animal world, mating has its advantages, which may explain why it has evolved independently in several species, including us.
Experts have suggested several benefits of so-called social monogamy, in which couples come together for at least one breeding season to care for their young and ward off rivals.
Dyble studied various human populations throughout history and calculated the proportion of half-siblings (people who share the same mother and father) compared to half-siblings (people who share either mother or father, but not both).
Similar data have been collected for more than 30 socially monogamous mammals and other species.
Humans have a sibling monogamy rate of 66%, ahead of meerkats (60%) but behind European beavers (73%).
Meanwhile, our evolutionary cousins are at the bottom of the table: mountain gorillas at 6% and chimpanzees at just 4% (as is the dolphin).
In last place is the Soay sheep from Scotland, where females mate with multiple males, with 0.6% of siblings being father and mother.
The California mouse took first place with 100%.
However, being classified alongside meerkats and beavers does not mean that our societies are the same: human society is completely different.
“Although the proportion of siblings we see in humans is very similar to that of species such as meerkats or beavers, the social system we see in humans is very different,” Dyble told the BBC.
“Most of these species live in colony-like social groups or perhaps in single pairs that move together. Humans are very different. We live in what are called multi-male, multi-female groups where there are these monogamous or stable pair units,” he explained.
image source, Getty Images
Kit Opie, a professor at the University of Bristol’s Department of Anthropology and Archeology, who was not involved in the study, said this was another key element in understanding how monogamy arose in humans.
“I think this article gives us a very clear understanding that people are monogamous across time and in different places,” he explained.
“Our society is much more like that of chimpanzees and bonobos; we just took a different approach to mating,” he added.
The new study was published in the scientific journal Proceedings of the Royal Society: Biological Sciences.
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