It looks like some animals are finally off the hook.

Convicted by a whole gang of anthropologists, sociologists and psychologists for being the source of our darker, unrefined impulses, certain animals have been given a reprieve. How can this be?

For so long we have used the term "animal" to describe someone who was acting crude or uncivilized. There have been no exceptions. Movies like "Animal House" exploited the term with great commercial success. One definition of "animal" found in most dictionaries is "A person who behaves in a bestial or brutish manner."

For those of you who have been using that age-old alibi "don't blame me for acting rude, it is just my animal heritage," you may not want to read any further. Reading further could take away one of the most important excuses you may have for acting like a regular chimpanzee. Even Beavis and Butthead may have to find new role models.

A group of not-so-regular monkeys that would rather make love than make war got some well-deserved attention a few years back. Then, they dropped completely off the media's radar screen. It figures. In a media era where themes of conflict and competition trump all other subject matter and provide the biggest bang for the investment buck, mild-mannered monkeys and humans just don't rate. If you haven't heard about the "bonobos" (bow-no-bows), now is the time and here is the place.

No, these are not Boomer Baby Monkeys left over from the '60s -- that is a whole different kind of animal. These bonobos are the real thing; living and breathing and cavorting and walking (often upright) in Zaire, central Africa. They are so new to our consciousness that they didn't show up in hardcopy dictionaries until 2002. There are only about 10,000 of them left on planet earth. It is definitely time to save them. Maybe in the process of saving the dwindling population of bonobos, the bonobos just might save us.

Dr. de Waal, the author of one of the most popular books on bonobos, Bonobo: The Forgotten Ape, seeks to correct the image we have of our "ancestors" always being portrayed as driven by top-down management, territorialism, warfare and male dominance. According to the doctor, "Bonobos are as genetically close to us as the regular chimpanzee but they are more graceful, slender, have smaller heads, slimmer necks, longer legs, less burly upper torsos, and straighter backs, so that when they walk they look more like us" (or, when we walk, we look more like them).

Although bonobo females are dominant, it is so mild that bonobo society could easily be called "co-dominant" or gender equal. Does this mean that the bonobo guys have been practicing their femininity and the gals have been practicing their masculinity, like I would expect them to? Probably, because the bonobo guys -- catch this -- are less aggressive, not so hot-tempered and not as prone to physical violence as their chimpanzee relatives.

For Dr. de Waal, the message is "there is more flexibility in our lineage than we thought." I would say it a little differently.

Scientists have been studying chimpanzees,
They have found a new kind of sub-species.
Bonobo popularity is on the rise,
And they are going to help us realize
That our roots are very humanized.

So, don't go making alibis,
Just 'cause you want to act uncivilized,
Being rude is not what is used to be,
We keep losing excuses to be unmannerly.
It's time to own up to our bonobo past,
And become peace-loving people at last.

Feel free to sing the lyrics to the TLC tune "Don't Go Chasing Waterfalls."

The bonobo shares more than 98 percent of our genetic profile. So, if you just have to behave like an "animal," chose to behave like a bonobo. We will all be better off for it.

-- Be kind and prosper, Dr. Sterling

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