Shalampax Speaks

Gee peeps, it’s beginning to look as if I’m never again going to have time to report on anything but Openfly’s ongoing escapade. I wish I could convince one or two of the other bloggers here at Shalampax Speaks to pick up at least some of this story. Fat chance of that.

Oh well, here’s the latest scoop.

The ship that Openfly is being held captive on has reached a port. Dr. Don refuses to tell Openfly or me where that is. He says he’s keeping his location a secret for “security reasons,” but I have no idea why he thinks he needs security.

As he said he would, Dr. Don couriered Openfly’s DNA sample to a lab to determine if she—and, by extension, the rest of us Shalampaxians—are Homo sapiens. He doesn’t expect to see results for at least a few days and possibly as long as two weeks.

One thing he didn’t tell me in his earlier emails is that, at the same time he contracted the lab work, he also requested that a docile bonobo be brought to the ship when it docked. According to Dr. Don, bonobos used to be called pygmy chimpanzees. I don’t know why they are now called bonobos. I guess someone thought that “pygmy” was politically incorrect. I’m told that people—and I guess chimpanzees too—are sensitive about that sort of nonsense these days.

Dr. Don sent me an email explaining why he wanted the bonobo. He worked hard to put it in language I would understand, but it was still gibberish to me. Rather than trying, and undoubtedly failing, to make some sense of it and then recounting it in my own words, I’ve pasted the body of his email below.

As you know, my theory is that Shalampaxians are not Homo sapiens. Although, even if I’m right, we are obviously still very closely related species. The similarities between Shalampaxians and modern humans are far too great for us to be too distant on the evolutionary tree.

With the possible exception of Shalampaxians, the closest animal relatives to Homo sapiens are bonobos and common chimpanzees. The current thinking is that the last common ancestor of those two species and Homo sapiens lived about 5 to 7 million years ago.

It is generally believed that Homo sapiens are the only members of the Homos genus not to have gone extinct. My theory is that that’s not entirely true. I believe that one of those other Homo species, I’m not sure which one, lived on and evolved into Shalampaxians.

If I’m right, bonobos, common chimpanzees, and Shalampaxians have all retained some of the characteristics of the last ancestor that they all shared with modern humans, characteristics that disappeared in Homo sapiens as a result of evolution. It’s Openfly’s estrus display that led me to this conclusion. Shalampaxian females share that characteristic with many other primate females.

From what I’ve been able to read about primates over the past couple of days (primates aren’t my area of specialty), I think Shalampaxians are closer to bonobos than to common chimpanzees, although my evidence for that is exceptionally weak. I base this hypothesis entirely on what Openfly has told me about Shalampaxian sexual behavior.

Like Shalampaxians, bonobos are quite casual about sex. In addition, both bonobos and Shalampaxians practice heterosexual, homosexual and autoerotic sex. Bonobos also French kiss and perform oral sex, just as Shalampaxians do, much to my delight.

There is one minor piece of evidence that suggests Shalampaxians might be closer to common chimpanzees: When common chimpanzee females are in estrus they typically copulate with many males in succession. When considering solely their promiscuity, they seem quite similar to Shalampaxian women.

Then again, baboon females are even less sexually discriminating than chimpanzees, but, despite sharing this trait with Shalampaxian women, baboons location on the evolutionary tree makes it almost impossible for them to be closer relatives to Shalampaxians than bonobos or common chimpanzees are.

Despite this one bit of sexual behavior evidence of link between common chimpanzees and Shalampaxians, I still think Shalampaxians have a closer relationship with bonobos. My reason for thinking this is that the females of the common chimpanzee species are typically sexually receptive only when they are in estrus. In contrast, because Shalampaxian women desperately want to avoid pregnancy, the only time they don’t have sex is when they are in estrus.

Bonobos, on the other hand, have a much longer estrus period. As I understand it from my reading, female bonobos are almost always sexually receptive. Shalampaxian women are much more like bonobos than common chimpanzees in this regard.

Finally, like Shalampaxians, bonobos use sex as a social instrument to make peace after a fight, seal contracts, bond relationships and so on.

To test my theory that bonobos and Shalampaxians share a number of traits that Shalampaxians don’t share with Homo sapiens, I plan to put the bonobo I brought onboard and Openfly in the same room.

You can put your mind at ease. I don’t plan to encourage sex between them. Instead, I will observe, compare and contrast their day-to-day behaviors to catalog their similarities and differences, purely for scientific purposes.

I’ll send you a report on my findings as soon as I’ve prepared it.

That’s where it stands, peeps. Openfly is going to be roommates with a bonobo for a few days. Paahlm help the bonobo. I hope it likes to drink.

Stay tuned.