How to Use bonobo in a Sentence

bonobo

noun
  • The one on the right is a bonobo; the one on the left is a chimpanzee.
    — Ed Yong, Discover Magazine, 25 Jan. 2012
  • Perhaps there are times when the nice bonobo doesn't finish last?
    — Carl Engelking, Discover Magazine, 4 Jan. 2018
  • And so do some primates, such as bonobos and snub-nosed monkeys.
    — Jackie Flynn Mogensen, Scientific American, 26 Mar. 2026
  • All were welcomed, even a cat on meds stowed with luggage and a pregnant bonobo.
    — Andrea Simakis, cleveland.com, 12 July 2019
  • The team aspires to tease this question out with future work on bonobos.
    — Jack Tamisiea, Scientific American, 3 Feb. 2025
  • That person has to identify the right cup, then give the treat under it to the bonobo.
    — Ars Technica, 3 Feb. 2025
  • Then there are chimpanzees and their close relatives, bonobos.
    — Karen Kaplan, latimes.com, 3 Nov. 2017
  • Some cries came from infant chimpanzees or bonobos calling to their mothers.
    — Elizabeth Preston, New York Times, 8 Aug. 2023
  • And then there was Viktor, the young bonobo who couldn’t forget Shields, either.
    — San Diego Union-Tribune, 18 Mar. 2022
  • And yet, according to one of our studies, 75% of people have no idea what a bonobo is.
    — Chris Mooney, Discover Magazine, 27 May 2010
  • Female bonobos form strong alliances that keep male aggression in check.
    — Kim Elsesser, Forbes.com, 25 Apr. 2025
  • Specifically one person who works with wild chimps and bonobos.
    — Abbey White, HollywoodReporter, 10 Nov. 2025
  • Chimpanzee males intimidate and beat females; bonobo males do not.
    — John Hawks, WSJ, 25 Jan. 2019
  • Some of our closer relatives, like chimps and bonobos, learn from their fellow species-members.
    — John Timmer, Ars Technica, 18 June 2024
  • Key among potential insights is what bonobos can teach researchers about humans.
    — Dennis Romero, NBC News, 27 Oct. 2024
  • Four more animals — one bonobo and three gorillas — got their first shot this month and will get a second one in April.
    — Fox News, 19 Mar. 2021
  • The apes’ close relatives, bonobos, however, were more laissez-faire and rarely stepped in.
    — Jackie Flynn Mogensen, Scientific American, 10 May 2026
  • Along with chimpanzees, bonobos are some of our closest living relatives.
    — Laura Baisas, Popular Science, 16 Nov. 2023
  • For example, the zoo will be vaccinating a 5-year-old up to a 50 year old bonobo.
    — Hannah Kirby, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, 16 Nov. 2021
  • As the primatologist Frans de Waal has put it, bonobos make love, not war.
    — John Hawks, WSJ, 25 Jan. 2019
  • Female bonobos, chimpanzees, and dolphins are also known to use tools more than their male counterparts.
    — Laura Baisas, Popular Science, 16 May 2024
  • Our closest ape relatives, like chimps and bonobos, show a fair amount of violence, as did many groups of hunter-gatherers.
    — Big Think, 18 Oct. 2025
  • One bonobo recognized a face after 26 years — a record for facial memory beyond our species.
    — Carl Zimmer, New York Times, 18 Dec. 2023
  • One bonobo mom groomed her dead infant immediately before eating it with other members of the group.
    — Bridget Alex, Discover Magazine, 28 Sep. 2018
  • This means war Not every new trait animals exhibit is a noble one—a fact that is borne out by a recent study of bonobos.
    — Jeffrey Kluger, TIME, 5 June 2024
  • The subject of the study was Kanzi, arguably the world's most famous bonobo — an endangered species of ape that's a smaller cousin to chimpanzees.
    — Nathan Rott, NPR, 10 Feb. 2026
  • Seventeen months later, the young bonobo had acquired a vocabulary of 50 words.
    — Kevin Miyazaki, Smithsonian Magazine, 10 Aug. 2020
  • The idea that men are unsuitable for childcare is seemingly supported by the apes closest to us, chimpanzees and bonobos.
    — Time, 17 June 2023
  • The researchers fear that the experiments are too invasive and could alter the social dynamics of the bonobo group.
    — Katie Hunt, CNN Money, 3 June 2026
  • Another 45 genes underwent this process since humans split off from the ancestors of chimps and bonobos.
    — John Timmer, Ars Technica, 5 Jan. 2023

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'bonobo.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

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