Astounding Facts About Primates that Never Cease to Amaze
14. Primates have extraordinary social lives.
Most primates seek out the protection and social interaction of an extended community, including male and female-dominated clans, monogamous pairs, and even nuclear families, not at all dissimilar to human societies. It is not all fun and games; primate communities also face bullying, murder, and straight-up murdering newborn babies! Dominant golden lion tamarin males lead groups of up to 20 members. The leader is responsible for protecting the group and the territory they live in and preventing possible attacks from predators. He is also responsible for reproducing with females, the lucky fellow! Woolly spider monkeys are native to Brazil’s jungles and are incredibly peaceful. They share close social bonds with their species and tend to be non-hierarchical. Their resources are shared equally, and they live a reasonably egalitarian life!
That is not quite so much with macaque monkeys. Disneynature did a documentary about macaque monkeys entitled Monkey Kingdom, and it featured an outcast monkey, Maya, who lives at the bottom of her group’s social order. She is frequently tormented by other monkeys who see her as less worthy than them, and she cannot speak up for fear of being cast out of the group and left to die. There is no question that primates have complex social lives that look strikingly similar to those of humans. Whether they are egalitarian or socially striated is probably based on the particular species, and both group structures reflect human societies.
Most primates seek out the protection and social interaction of an extended community, including male and female-dominated clans, monogamous pairs, and even nuclear families, not at all dissimilar to human societies. It is not all fun and games; primate communities also face bullying, murder, and straight-up murdering newborn babies! Dominant golden lion tamarin males lead groups of up to 20 members. The leader is responsible for protecting the group and the territory they live in and preventing possible attacks from predators. He is also responsible for reproducing with females, the lucky fellow! Woolly spider monkeys are native to Brazil’s jungles and are incredibly peaceful. They share close social bonds with their species and tend to be non-hierarchical. Their resources are shared equally, and they live a reasonably egalitarian life!
That is not quite so much with macaque monkeys. Disneynature did a documentary about macaque monkeys entitled Monkey Kingdom, and it featured an outcast monkey, Maya, who lives at the bottom of her group’s social order. She is frequently tormented by other monkeys who see her as less worthy than them, and she cannot speak up for fear of being cast out of the group and left to die. There is no question that primates have complex social lives that look strikingly similar to those of humans. Whether they are egalitarian or socially striated is probably based on the particular species, and both group structures reflect human societies.
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13 September 2022
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