FEMALES as DEADLY as MALES !
The female of the species may indeed be as deadly as the male, research suggests.
The idea that it is males who murder, maim and make war is questioned by a study of chimpanzees, with which humans are claimed to share a common ancestor six million years ago.
It shows females can be just as violent, particularly when rivals migrate into their territory and compete for resources. A team from the University of St Andrews saw one infanticide, and found strong circumstantial evidence for two more killings, while studying chimps, which have much the same DNA as humans, in the Budongo Forest, Uganda.
Psychologists Simon Townsend, Katie Slocombe and Klaus Zuberb?hler, together with Melissa Emery Thompson from Harvard University, describe in the journal, Current Biology, instances of female chimps killing the offspring of incoming mothers.
Townsend said that he did not want to extend the observations to people before looking at other closely related great ape species, particularly bonobos.
He added that over a period of around 10,000 years, wolves and dogs have evolved have very different behaviours so that, given chimpanzees and humans shared a common ancestor six million years ago "just because chimpanzee females exhibit certain behaviours does not necessarily have any direct bearing on human behaviour, although the parallels are striking".
Only three previous instances of lethal aggression in wild female chimpanzees have been documented in the last half century. In the 1970s the primatologist Jane Goodall at Gombe Stream National Park, Tanzania, observed a mother and daughter co-operating to kill at least two babies of other females. But her observations had long been disregarded as inconsistent.
Townsend said: "There is a widespread belief in scientific literature that male and female chimpanzees differ greatly in their nature.
"It's true that males are much more often seen to engage in extreme physical violence than females, and this has led to the notion of violent and demonic males in contrast to quite peaceful females. However, our research shows that, under the right socio-ecological circumstances, these chimp gender stereotypes collapse completely. If their resources are under threat, females can become just as violently aggressive as males."
The work, published today, suggests that extreme acts of aggression only occur under specific circumstances. The chimp community which was studied has experienced high-levels of female immigration, which increased competition for food and meant there were three females to every male.
Townsend said: "We believe that this influx of females, some with dependant offspring, has put pressure on food and mate resources and consequently, the resident females have acted aggressively."
SOURCE :
Is female of the species as deadly as the male? | Uk News | News | Telegraph
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FEMALES as DEADLY as MALES ! 
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