When a Guinea baboon gets hold of meat, who eats next isn’t luck, it’s loyalty. After nearly 10 years observing wild Guinea baboons in Senegal, researchers uncovered a hidden rule behind every meal.
Published in a recent study in iScience, the primates passed meat not by chance but by closeness — first to family, then to favored friends — a pattern similar to the sharing networks of ancient human foragers.
“We were able to show that Guinea baboons pass meat along their social bonds,” said William J. O'Hearn, lead author of the study, in a press release. “This form of tolerant sharing is reminiscent of the behavior of human hunter-gatherer groups, where meat is first distributed within the family and only then reaches more distant acquaintances or neighbors.”
Parallels Between Baboons and Ancient Humans
Guinea baboons (Papio papio) live in complex, multi-level societies that closely resemble the organization of early human hunter-gatherers. At the base is the unit — roughly the baboon equivalent of a human household — made up of one male, several females, and their offspring. Three to four units form a party, comparable to a human cluster of related families linked by long-term male friendships and kinship. Two to three parties then join to form a gang, much like a human camp where different groups gather and interact.
Social bonds are strongest within units and grow weaker across each level, creating a layered network of cooperation. These parallels to humans suggest that some principles of social organization — from family-based trust to community-wide sharing — may have evolved along similar lines in both humans and baboons.
Read More: 300,000-Year-Old Wooden Tools Suggest Ancient Humans Also Ate Veggies, Not Just Meat
Tracking Meat Sharing in Guinea Baboons
Between April 2014 and June 2023, researchers observed wild Guinea baboons at Senegal’s “Centre de Recherche de Primatologie” (CRP) in Niokolo-Koba National Park. The team studied 61 males and 42 females, all adults or subadults, belonging to 13 social groups, eight of which were core study parties. Each baboon was individually identified by natural markings or radio collars, allowing scientists to track daily interactions.
During the study, researchers conducted thousands of 20-minute observation sessions, documenting grooming, resting, and feeding, as well as every instance of meat capture or exchange. Across 109 hunts, they recorded 320 transfers, from calm exchanges to aggressive thefts. Most occurred through passive sharing, when one baboon finished feeding, and another quietly took its place without conflict.
By combining these field observations with statistical models, the team found that the closer the social bond, the more tolerant the exchange. Sharing was never deliberate; it emerged naturally through social tolerance. Within family-like units, meat passed smoothly from one animal to the next, while between groups, it was rare and tense.
What Baboon Behavior Reveals About Human Evolution
The findings suggest that cooperation may emerge naturally in societies built on layered social bonds. Even without deliberate generosity, Guinea baboons distribute meat in patterns that echo early human communities, a reminder that the roots of sharing run deeper in our evolutionary history than culture alone can explain.
“This suggests that certain social patterns may have developed independently in humans and non-human primates, but in comparable ways,” explained Julia Fischer, a co-author, in the press release.
Read More: Early Humans Were Likely Animal Scavengers and Ate Saber-Tooth Cat Leftovers
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