Bonobos Love Water

This is Lucy, a young bonobo at the Jacksonville Zoo and Gardens, showing two characteristics for the species -- an upright walk and an attraction to water. In the Democratic Republic of the Congo (formerly Zaire), villagers comment on bonobo's human like stance and their propensity for entering shallow waterways.

In captivity, bonobos enjoy a water moat for the enrichment that it provides. They stalk the wildlife that lives there, such as fish, turtles, insects, and snakes, and they consume the aquatic plants that grow in the shallows. They dig in the mud, cool off, wash their toys, and drink water off of soaked or dipped items. They launch floating objects like boats, and then go in after them. They sink other things and then recover them. They soak cloth in the water and then drape the wet material over themselves.

Lucy demonstrates another benefit of the zoo's moat as she wades out of the water, with a monkey biscuit in hand. She has soaked it to soften its hardness to a consistency that is much more appetizing to eat.

Photo by M. Brickner