Brian Cox

Oh, I've visualised it.

The behaviours we've been talking about, so complex behaviours, but many of them driven by environmental factors and so on, how much can we read into the intelligence of the individual from the social structures and sexual behaviours that we see?

So, Joe, monogamy, when we see monkeys that are able to commit to monogamy, will we presume that this shows various other forms of intelligence, and indeed even possibly in terms of the rearing of the babies?

So long-term monogamous relationships, and you said there's an increased brain size associated with that.

Does that imply that concepts, very human concepts, like love, for example, which you would associate with monogamy, are we allowed, is it appropriate, to begin to think in those terms, which are very anthropomorphic, I suppose, terms?

The trouble is it's just so hot inside that bonobo costume.

Oh, that is... If Levi 501s don't relaunch with that as a poster...

So you're saying a new, I don't know, a new technique, a new frontier of knowledge would be to really to look at the brain of a monkey, let's say, and see the... So we want to see how the neurons fire, if the patterns are the same, the regions of the brain that are stimulated are the same as a human, that would be the final...

The proof is strong evidence that they're thinking in the same way and experiencing the same feelings.

I use the word feelings there.

So that's the point, isn't it?

But Joe, you said you don't think we'd ever get to that point where we'd say that the map is now so obvious.

Let's say you had a family group and you see exactly how the brains are operating, then the patterns in the brain are happening automatically.

I think we've done a very English thing with this show, which is we've somehow really dragged out the bit that has allowed us to avoid talking about sex in a desperate bid that we won't get to it.

But we promised this show would include monkey sex, and so... Please welcome Anita and Bo... No, the...

So to get now to that, to the actual sexual behavior.

The nitty gritty.

So the first thing is, do we get a sense, Joe, that monkeys enjoy sex, that this is fun?

So there's not, say, a pattern in terms of, say, the menstrual cycle of the monkey, or that they would be.

It's not merely, oh, hang on a minute, I can have a baby now, that you actually see it as in the same way with humans that people go.