#598: Primatologist Isabel Behncke on Play, Sexual Selection, and Lessons from Following Bonobos for 3,000 Kilometers in the Jungles of Congo

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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 range 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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[08:11] Baco and Jiro


[13:05] What is an applied evolutionary ethologist?


[15:43] Lorenz vs. Skinner


[18:23] The brilliance of consilience


[19:11] Humboldt vs. Darwin and the origins of evolutionary
thinking


[29:42] Recent revolutionary thoughts about evolution


[36:16] Complexity and niche construction


[41:33] What’s more fun: a barrel of chimpanzees or a barrel of
bonobos?


[49:19] Chimpanzee geography


[59:29] Magnificent bonobos


[1:02:11] Female mammal problems and solutions


[1:09:17] Sexual dimorphism


[1:12:18] Avoiding naturalistic fallacies


[1:13:52] How accurate is it to call the Congo the Heart of
Darkness?


[1:18:24] Why are the Japanese so interested in animal behavior?


[1:21:23] Potato-washing monkeys


[1:23:28] Why do breakthroughs seem to come in clusters?


[1:28:29] Animals at play: the adaptive joker hypothesis


[1:38:59] The overlap between flow states and play


[1:41:39] What the natural world can teach humans about
optimizing play


[1:43:43] The everlasting tango between energy and time


[1:47:19] Post-pandemic play


[1:50:09] How much do we understand about the way animals
communicate?


[2:03:05] The drunken monkey hypothesis


[2:04:07] Parting thoughts


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