Researchers Find Women May Have Another Purpose Besides Breeding

Why do post-menopausal women live past their reproductive years?

Pexels | Photo by cottonbro studio

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Her tussled gray hair stands at odd angles over patchy bald spots. Her teeth, once ivory pillars, are now worn down to brown stumps. Her hollowed eyes are etched with years of wisdom. Her sinewy limbs hang like gnarled branches that have borne the weight of too much fruit.

Her name is Garbo. She is part of a 20-year study on menopause in wild chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes) and one of the stars in Netflix’s Chimp Empire.

A serene narrator introduces the 61-year-old Garbo as the “oldest chimp at Ngogo.” She had her last baby at 38, and despite going through menopause, she “still plays her part in the community.”

Yep, that’s right. Garbo is one old broad, and the chimps have not bludgeoned her to death…yet. (Unlike Pork Pie, who got murdered by ape thugs!)

Garbo’s refusal to drop dead in her menopausal years has scientists in a tizzy. Except for some toothed whale species, most female species do not go through menopause. And until this study, it was believed chimpanzees die once they reach their nonreproductive years.

Menopause, in general, doesn’t make a lot of sense from a cutthroat evolutionary standpoint. In theory, women who are too old to have children have served their purpose.

Once past their fertile years, they should just die.

But not the Ngogo chimps. These sassy vixens continue to inhabit the earth past their baby-making years. What gives?

Since chimpanzees and humans share a common ancestor, researchers wanted to know why. Here are three hypotheses.