Discover, November 8 2010.
In some monkey species, monkey moms use snuggle time with their babies as a commodity. Mothers will “sell” time with their children to other females in their colony for the price of several minutes of grooming. As Science News puts it, they have a “do my hair before you touch my baby” rule. The research team who made this discovery, which was described in the journal Animal Behaviour, studied vervet monkeys and sooty mangabeys in the Ivory Coast’s Tai National Park.
Newborn infants draw crowds of female monkeys who want to touch, hold, and make lip-smacking noises at the babies. Touching of the baby can be had for a price of a few minutes spent grooming its mother, though it’s not really known why female monkeys are so drawn to the young of others. The researchers use the idea of a “market” to understand this behavior because the time put into the grooming fluctuates with the youth of the baby and the availability of other babies. The younger babies get more grooming time for their mothers, and if there are few other babies around for competition the “price” is driven up, explains Science News. Read More >