X, I am happy to concede that your knowledge of biology is superior to mine! My interest in the subject has been stimulated by my brother, who teaches animal psychology/behavior at the University of Washington, and who religiously sends me great books on the subject every Christmas. It is indeed a fascinating field, even though I lay no claim to expertise in it.
Thought you might be interested in the following lecture notes (for a course in Primate Social Behavior) that I found on the web:
www-personal.umich.edu
A couple of interesting details I picked up from it:
The 200 primate species display the widest variety in socio-sexual (my coinage) organization. The lecturer classifies them as monogamous, polyandrous, polygynous, and promiscuous. [My addition: everybody's favorite species these days appears to be the promiscuous bonobos, to whom we are even closer genetically than to the chimpanzees, and whose motto is: Make love, not war!]
Males do like to fight, but they fight over all sorts of things, not just females. And the males don't necessarily rule the roost.
What intrigued me in particular was the fact that the females are no slouches when it comes to punching each other out, either. For some reason, the following sentence (re gorillas) tickled me:
The silverback male often intercedes to end aggressive encounters between females.
Now, girls!!
Joan
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