"Because Foudouko maintained an alliance with his now-weak partner, he was ostracised and then ousted by the others."<p>More likely, the moment his alliance with another chimp of the same generation was broken, he was a dead chimp walking, no matter what he did.<p>Of course, if true, the extreme loyalty implied by the quote is very noteworthy for chimps... but there's no evidence that Foudouko gave up leadership for the sake of being loyal to a friend: we know what did happened, not what could have happened. Alliances are critical for leadership for both ourselves and chimps; and they can't be compelled and don't pop up in day by mutual contractual agreement. I don't know how likely it was that Foudouko could have gained the absolute loyalty of one of the next-ranking chimps, but the authors don't know with certainty, either; they assume that he had another solid option of just subbing in another chimp and staying king. I'm rather skeptical of that. We know that Foudouko didn't try to switch allegiances, and since Foudouko knew the other chimps even better than the researchers did, I'm going to go with his judgement about how easy it would have been to win them over. It seems most likely that he bet on his buddy's recovery for lack of a solid option; chimps have been known to tolerate (and even feed) other crippled chimps in the wild, so it seems awfully likely that Foudouko understood wounds and that wounds can be permanent at some level. Note I'm not arguing that I know what lay behind Foudouko's decision or that of the lower-ranking chimps, or that Foudouko made the right decision, necessarily; just arguing against the authors' certainty about what the chimps would have done, and why; in a counterfactual situation.<p>Steve Ballmer might be able to relate to this.
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