Chimps in wild appear not to regularly experience menopause
Is post-reproductive period unique to humans among primates?
December 13, 2007
Steve Bradt
Faculty of Arts and Sciences
A pioneering study of wild chimpanzees has found that these close human relatives do not routinely experience menopause, rebutting previous studies of captive individuals which had postulated that female chimpanzees reach reproductive senescence at 35 to 40 years of age.
Together with recent data from wild gorillas and orangutans, the finding -- described this week in the journal Current Biology -- suggests that human females are rare or even unique among primates in experiencing a lengthy post-reproductive lifespan.
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Melissa Emery Thompson (foreground) does an estrogen assay as Associate Professor of Anthropology Cheryl Knott looks on.
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