In middle age and Bonobo need reading glasses – Interfax

What? Look at the picture. 45-year-old, the oldest man in one of the groups of bonobos (dwarf chimpanzees) that live in the reserve scientific Lo in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, iska 21-year-old Jeudiego. Common sense he should do it with an eye on the fur of the young male, because then he would quickly eat, hidden in his mind parasites. Nevertheless iska him, staring off into the distance about half a meter. Why? Because of how often people in middle age, suffer from presbyopia, difficulty seeing what is close, – write to the last “Current Biology”, scientists from Japan and the UK.

Heungjin Ryu, the main author of the work, and the scientist from the Institute of Primate Research Institute in Kyoto, said that other scientists have long noticed that some bonobos and common chimpanzees iskają “at a distance”. However, nobody paid much attention to it.

- Once I saw how fun This iska Jeudiego – says the researcher. Only when he grabbed something in the head of the younger male closer, and pulled it with my mouth.

Ryu’s team decided to take bonobos under a magnifying glass. It quickly became clear that This was not the only strange iskającym individual. Scientists have noticed that the older apes watched, the farther they are from odsuwały iskanych for yourself accompanied by. One of them even notice the deterioration of vision over time. All started to show symptoms of presbyopia (when it less flexible the lens of the eye concentrates light near objects behind the retina instead of on it – as in the case of hyperopia) of about forty.

just like people. According to scientists, this means that our presbyopia is a natural process not related to what they are told, or wpatrujemy in computer screens.

Man and chimpanzee (common and pygmy) are about 99 percent. the total DNA. Our common ancestor lived around. 8 million years ago. Although all three species have evolved differently (not just intellectually, we have, for example, slightly different customs, sexual), it turns out that still torment us with similar disease.

Bonobo Although, of course, do not read it to them over forty need sunglasses “to read”. According to researchers, older specimens do not have such a good “bite” as a Junior, when chimpanzees dwarf looking for a partner to iskania.