More news from the primate world — the same natural realm that brought you peaceful sex-positive matriarchal bonobos. Today’s headline is about chimpanzees, which, according to a new anthropological report, routinely pursue sexual congress with the oldest females in their troop.

The results of the study came as a surprise to human academics. According to Agence France-Presse, “The startling discovery — especially when contrasted with the sexual proclivities of humans, a close evolutionary cousin — suggests that socialization plays a larger role in male-female relations than is commonly assumed.” In other words, the male human’s tendency to aim younger is “a derived human trait, probably due to the tendency to form long-term relationships between couples,” Boston University anthropologist Martin Muller concluded.

In the chimpanzee world, males will have sex with multiple female partners that have reached sexual maturity and are in heat, but those females who have been around the longest are most likely to arouse interest in the male chimps.

Probably because they know what they’re doing.