My mom knows how to help me increase my ability to find a girlfriend

For the boys, it is frightening for the mother to find a wife to help them, but the male bonobo monkeys like it.

A bonobo monkey. (Photo: tewahanui.info)

Livescience said parents' interest in child reproduction is a common phenomenon. Whales are famous for their close relationship between mother and child. Meanwhile, if born by a mother with higher order in the herd, male hyenas will have a better chance of mating when they reach the reproductive age.

For primates, many studies prove that mothers play a big role in the survival of the grandchildren that they are born. But the mother-child or grandmother-grandmother relationship is difficult to measure , because most males leave the flock when they reach adulthood. Bonobo monkeys, which are related to chimpanzees, are an exception. The bonobo monkey populations are led by female monkeys and the males remain attached to their mothers when it comes to reproductive stage.

Biologists have long known that the status of male bonobo monkeys is determined by their mother's status. So Martin Surbeck, a biologist of Max Planck Primate Research Institute in Germany, and his colleagues followed a herd of bonobo monkeys in Salonga National Park in Congo.

Field observations show that mother bonobo monkeys take an active role in finding their partners for their ' precious '. To determine the role of the mother, Surbeck and colleagues used DNA data to determine the relationship between individuals. They then followed the monkeys for more than 10 months to record parameters such as number of fights, mating and reproduction.

The team found bonobo monkeys divided into small groups during the day. In each group, males are always around their mother for 81 to 92% of the time. When the mother is not around, the male monkey has the highest status in the herd, making up to 41% of the mating time with the offspring. But when the mother of the males has low status appears, the male with the highest status only performs 25% of the total mating time. In other words, the mother monkeys chase the highest-ranking male monkey so that it cannot mate with the highest reproductive females. Thanks to that, the 'low-necked' males have a chance to be a father.

Sometimes monkeys chase away males who are not related to their offspring or support their children in a fight with their rival. In many cases they look after other males when their offspring mate with females.

However, in most of the time the mother monkey performs the role of the 'matchmaker'. Because bonobo monkeys have a higher social status than male monkeys, it is difficult for 'guys' to approach 'girls'. The presence of mother monkeys allows males to approach females more easily, thereby increasing the chance of mating.

' The greater the level of support for a son of a mother, the more grandchildren will have ,' Surbeck said.

Joan Silk, a biologist at the University of California in the US, thinks that bonobo behavior helps scientists better understand the ancestors of humans.