A UCLA scientist has announced the first evidence of menopause in wild chimpanzees. A study was published in the journal showing that humans are not the only primates with long lifespans beyond reproductive age. Science.
Biologist Brian Wood discovered that female chimpanzees in the Ngogo community in Uganda go through menopause. Their ability to get pregnant decreased after age 30, and they stopped producing babies after age 50. The results mean that a female chimpanzee spends approximately one-fifth of her adult life post-reproductive.
To obtain these results, scientists evaluated the death and birth rates of 185 female chimpanzees based on demographic data collected from 1995 to 2016. They also measured hormone levels in urine samples from 66 female chimpanzees aged 14 to 67.
Before this study, signs of menopause in mammals had been found only in a few odontocete species and in primates only in humans. The new data will help researchers understand the biological meaning of menopause and how it occurs in the human species. One hypothesis suggests that women past childbearing age may pass on more of their genes to help care for their grandchildren, thus increasing their chances of survival. However, among chimpanzees, older females generally do not live with their daughters or care for their children.
Scientists believe that the onset of menopause in female Ngogo chimpanzees may be a temporary response to unusually favorable environmental conditions, as this population has a stable and abundant food source and is at low risk of being eaten by predators. However, it is also possible that the long lives of older females have not been observed before due to human exposure: Many of our infections are life-threatening for these monkeys, and biologists have only recently learned to avoid major disease outbreaks.
Previously in Brazil to create A new species of “iron” centipede with complex reproductive organs.