Clever Monkeys

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Clever Monkeys

• Part 1/6
• Part 2/6
• Part 3/6
• Part 4/6
• Part 5/6
• Part 6/6

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Clever Monkeys Part 1

• Part 1/6
• What to look for
• Similarities to us

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Primates in the clip

• Marmosets (Platyrrhini Parvorder)
• Tamarins (Platyrrhini Parvorder)

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Primate Physical Traits Limbs

• A tendency towards erect posture.
• Hands and feet possess grasping ability.
• Features of the hands and feet
• 5 digits on hand and feet
• Opposable thumb
• Precision grip possible only with some Primates
• Partially opposable great toe
• Tactile pads enriched with sensory nerve fibers
  at the ends of digits

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Primate Physical Traits Teeth

• Omnivorous
• Incisors for biting and cutting premolars and
  molars for chewing and grinding
• Dental formula
• Old World anthropoids have two incisors, one
  canine, two premolars, and three molars on each
  side in both upper and lower jaws 2.1.2.3 (32
  teeth total)

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Primate Physical Traits Vision

• Stereoscopic Vision
• Visual images are superimposed on one another.
• This provides for depth perception, or the
  perception of the external environment in three
  dimensions.

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Primate Physical Traits Vision cont.

• Binocular Vision
• Vision characterized by overlapping visual fields
  provided for by forward-facing eyes.
• Binocular vision is also essential to depth
  perception.

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Primate Physical Traits Vision cont.

• Color Vision
• Diurnal primates have it, nocturnal ones dont

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Primate Physical Traits Smell

• Primates have a decreased reliance on the sense
  of smell.
• No rhinarium worse sense of smell

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Primate Physical Traits Locomotion

• Quadrupedal, walk on all fours (Baboon)
• Vertical clinging and leaping (Indiri)
• Brachiation (Gibbon)
• Knuckle walking (Gorilla/Chimp)

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Primate Physical Traits Neocortex

• The Neocortex makes up the outer portion of the
  Cerebrum. The larger the Neocortex the more
  social the animal.

Human Cerebrum
Gibbon
Wolf
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Primate Physical TraitsEvolutionary Factors

• Changes in diet, reliance on vision, grasping
  hands and feet came about with arboreal settings,
  forward-facing eyes (facilitate binocular
  vision), rise of angiosperms (flowering plants)

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Clever Monkeys Part 2

• Part 2/6
• What to look for
• Basic Primate Family Unit
• Enculturation
• Learned Behaviors
• The Piper Plant
• Social Behavior
• Bonding
• Grooming
• Aggression

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Primates in the clip

• Silver Leaf Monkeys (Catarrhini Parvorder)
• White-faced Capuchins (Platyrrhini Parvorder)

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Primate Family Units

• The basic social unit among all primates is the
  female and her infants.
• Except in species in which monogamy or polyandry
  occur, males do not participate in rearing
  offspring.
• The mother-infant relationship is often
  maintained throughout life.
• Primates produce only a few young in whom they
  invest a tremendous amount of parental care
  (Kselected) (contrast r-selected)

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Enculturation

• Cultural behavior is learned it is passed from
  generation to generation through observation and
  instruction.
• Nonhuman primate infants, through observing their
  mothers and others, learn about food items,
  appropriate behaviors, and how to use and modify
  objects to achieve certain ends.
• More complex, chimpanzee culture includes tools
  such as termite fishing sticks and leaf sponges.

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Social Behavior

• Bonding
• The role of bonding between primate mothers and
  infants was demonstrated in experiments at the
  University of Wisconsin.
• Psychologist Harlow raised infant monkeys with
  surrogate mothers made of wire or a combination
  of wire and cloth.
• Other monkeys were raised with no mother at all.

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Social Behavior

• Affiliative Behavior
• Hugging, kissing and grooming are used in
  reconciliation.
• Relationships are crucial to nonhuman primates
  and the bonds between individuals can last a
  lifetime.
• Altruism, behaviors that benefit another while
  posing risk to oneself, are common in primate
  species.

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Social Behavior

• Grooming
• Picking through fur to remove dirt, parasites,
  and other materials that may be present.
• Social grooming is common among primates and
  reinforces social relationships.

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Aggressive Interactions

• Dominant actions can keep subordinates away from
  food and using weight loss and poor nutrition,
  threatening reproductive success of subordinates
• Competition can result in injury and death

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Intergroup Aggression

• Primate groups are associated with a home range
  where they remain permanently.
• Within the home range is a portion called the
  core area, which contains the highest
  concentration of predictable resources, and its
  where the group is most frequently found.
• The core area can also be said to be a groups
  territory, and its the portion of the home range
  defended against intrusion.

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Clever Monkeys Part 3

• Part 3/6
• What to look for
• Natural selection acting on behavior?
• Reproductive Behaviors and Strategies
• Sexual Selection
• Benefits of Group Living

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Primates in the clip

• Toque Macaques
• Golden Lion Tamarin
• Golden snub-nosed monkey
• Emperor Tamarin
• Proboscus monkey
• Douc Langur of Cambodia monkey

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Natural Selection acts on Behavior

• A need to try everything is an extraordinary way
  to survive in the jungle. Leaves can cure you or
  kill you

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The Evolution of Behavior

• Behavior constitutes a phenotype, just like
  observable, physical traits do.
• Individuals whose behavioral phenotypes increase
  reproductive fitness pass on their genes at a
  faster rate.
• Genes do not code for specific behaviors (i.e.
  aggression, cooperation, etc.)
• Natural selection acts on genetic factors shaped
  by ecological setting of past and present

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Sexual Selection

• A type of natural selection that operates on one
  sex, usually males.
• Long-term, this increases the frequency of traits
  that lead to greater success in acquiring mates.
• Sexual selection in primates is most common in
  species in which mating is polygynous and male
  competition for females is prominent.
• Sexual selection produces dimorphism with regard
  to a number of traits, most noticeably body size.

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Benefits of Group Living

• Group living exposes animals to competition with
  other group members,
• so why not live alone?
• Costs of competition are offset by the benefits
  of predator defense provided by associating with
  others.
• Group living evolved as an adaptive response to a
  number of ecological variables.

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Clever Monkeys Part 4

• Part 4/6
• What to look for
• Adaptive behavior
• Intra and Inter-species language and symbols

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Primates in the clip

• Howler Monkeys (Platyrrhini Parvorder)
• Black and White Colobus (Catarrhini Parvorder)
• Red Colobus (Catarrhini Parvorder)
• Guenon (Catarrhini Parvorder)
• Sooty Mangabey (Catarrhini Parvorder)
• Diana Monkey (Catarrhini Parvorder)
• White-faced Capuchin (Platyrrhini Parvorder)
• Patas Monkey (Catarrhini Parvorder)

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Language

• Nonhuman animals havent been considered capable
  of communicating about external events, objects,
  or other animals.
• It has been assumed that nonhuman animals use a
  closed system of communication, where
  vocalizations dont include references to
  specific external phenomena.

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Koko the Gorilla

• The Gorilla Foundation
• Clip of Koko
• Want to volunteer or get a job with Koko at
  Stanford? Go Here

Koko and Penny Patterson
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Clever Monkeys Part 5

• Part 5/6
• What to look for
• Dominance Hierarchies
• Communication methods
• Stress-related diseases in large societies
• Benefits of group living

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Primates in the clip

• Baboons
• (Catarrhini Parvorder)
• Geladas
• (Catarrhini Parvorder)

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Dominance Hierarchies

• Many primate societies are organized into
  dominance hierarchies that impose order and
  establish parameters of individual behavior.
• Higher-ranking animals have greater access to
  preferred food items and mating partners than
  lower ranking individuals.
• Dominance hierarchies are sometimes called
  pecking orders that change throughout ones
  life and are learned

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Factors that Influence Dominance Status

• Sex
• Age
• Aggression
• Time in the group
• Intelligence
• Motivation
• Mothers social position

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Communication

• Basics
• Any act that conveys information to another
  individual.
• Frequently, the result of communication is a
  change in the behavior of the recipient.
• Communication may be the result of involuntary
  processes or a secondary consequence of an
  intentional action.

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Communication

• Raised body hair is an example of an autonomic,
  or unintentional, response.
• Gestures, facial expressions, and vocalizations
  are examples of deliberate communication.
• The fear grin, seen in all primates, indicates
  fear and submission.
• Grooming serves to indicate submission or
  reassurance.
• Displays communicate emotional states.

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Benefits of Group Living

• Predation
• Primates are vulnerable to many predators,
  including snakes, birds of prey, leopards, wild
  dogs, lions, and even other primates.
• Where predation pressure is high, large
  communities are advantageous.
• These may be multi-male, multi-female groups or
  congregations of one-male groups.

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Benefits of Group Living

• Relationships with Nonpredatory Species
• Many primate species associate with other primate
  and nonprimate species for various reasons,
  including predator avoidance.

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Benefits of Group Living

• Dispersal
• Members of one sex leave the group in which they
  were born when they become sexually mature.
• Individuals who leave find mates outside their
  natal group, so dispersal is believed to decrease
  the likelihood of close inbreeding.

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Clever Monkeys Part 6

• Part 6/6
• What to look for
• Tool usage
• Intelligence

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Primates in the clip

• Bearded Capuchin (Platyrrhini Parvorder)

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Intelligence

• Mental capacity ability to learn, reason, or
  comprehend and interpret information, facts,
  relationships, and meanings.
• The capacity to solve problems, whether through
  the application of previously acquired knowledge
  or through insight.