and scavengers from taking an unfair portion of the meat. Following his study of the Taï chimpanzees, Boesch showed that the meat is distributed in a manner proportional to an individual's contribution to the hunt. This social mechanism is thought to prevent cheaters from destabilizing the cooperative hunting paradigm by getting more that the net benefit of hunters. Additionally, this meat-sharing behavior is not related to the social hierarchy of the group, suggesting that it depends solely on participation in the hunt.

Curiously,