Nasty primates

This is very interesting!! Anything else you could tell us about the primates you worked with?

 

There was a pied tamarin monkey that I discovered to be fond of a very strange game. It would begin with her sitting in the far corner of a large and temporary holding enclosure and dangling her tiny hand outside the bars waiting for me to touch it lightly with a finger.

Once I had touched the little hand she would throw herself into a mock rage and gnash her teeth , chirp, and make the "blowing a raspberry" tongue expression to communicate something that was presumably offensive in tamarin.

I discovered this purely by accident because once when I saw the tiny little hand closeup the first time made me reach out in curiosity ( It is incredible to think of the evolution of primate hands and especially the tiny marmoset and tamarin ones with the longish claws/nails) and stroked it lightly prompting a "fierce" response from the little monkey.

I know that it never caused her any genuine distress and that it was some form of play behaviour sought out. I say this because after the first time whenever I was near the enclosure and she saw me she would actively seek it out by choosing to go and sit in the corner of the enclosure. Then play would be initiated by dangling her hand very conspiciously out of the bars.

It was kind of funny actually because she would even leap out of her hanging hammock bed at the sound of my voice or whistling and go and sit in the corner of the cage in readiness to play. Strangely , neither her sister nor the male that shared the enclosure showed the same playfulness and were much more wary with people.

The spider monkey that I mentioned that tore a tuft of my hair out was a bit of a character too. He was an infant male who was a bit of spoiled brat and given a lot of attention by all the keepers but he was prone to being mischevious and jealous if he felt that he was being ignored by attention being given to any of the other monkeys. His mother was a very gentle and good natured animal and she would always come over to greet the keepers and be stroked.

One morning I was stroking the hand of his mother when the little brat came over and put his prehensile tail through the bars and around my neck to get in the way which was kind of a normal behaviour. I ignored it and kept stroking the mother and then I felt a sudden force and pain on the back of my head.

When I looked up I saw him bound away and sit on a branch to begin biting a handful of my hair. I then realized he had wrapped the tail around a tuft of my hair near the nape of my neck and yanked it out as if to say "**** you then!".

 

Which guenon species? Patas Monkeys are pretty cool and they seem pretty chill from when I saw them at Southwick's Zoo. I'd like a couple of them for pets some time in the future.

I've never liked chimps. They're just so aggressive and nasty. I've seen Golden-Bellied Mangabeys in Cleveland. the male was aggressive. I would assume other male member of the Cercocebus genus would be aggressive as well. The other Mangabeys in the genus Lophocebus seem to be calmer from videos I've seen. Also some Papio baboons can be gentle and accustomed to humans like Jack the Chacma Baboon who was a railway switchman in South Africa for his human handler.

 

Mandrills always seem very calm from what I've seen. One was even on the Jack Hanna show in the 90's.

 

Yes somewhat agree , I think the vibrant appearance naturally makes people assume they could be more potentially aggressive than they actually are.

I can only judge from the two individuals I've seen keepers work consistently with in two different zoos, a male and a female, and both were older ones kept singly. Generally less direct physical expression of overt aggression towards keepers than the papio baboons which are quite scary.

Mandrills use much more "subtle" visual cues like threat "yawning" as a prelude to aggression whereas baboons I have seen just tend to do far less of this and immediately choose to go on the warpath / be aggressive (guess it varies with the individual though).

However, mandrills can be difficult in a number of other ways in terms of stubbornness and passive aggression and unsuprisingly like all zoo animals they really despise vets which makes things especially difficult if for example they are diabetic and need daily shots of insulin.

 

I've also heard quite nice things about Mandrill. It's hard to think that something that looks so intimidating can be so calm and collected. I'm sure a lot of it has to do with their intelligence. They understand that humans don't pose a threat to them so they don't have a reason to be aggressive.

 

From what I've seen they have a far calmer temperament in captivity than other primates that occur in the same regions in the wild like baboons or chimps.

You usually know where you stand with mandrills (and baboons too) fairly quickly because they make it abundantly clear visually through cues with their body language and posture.

But like any wild animal in captive conditions or otherwise they are still unpredictable though much less so than chimps which have greater cunning (I can't stand the things actually , they are the only animal I have a visceral dislike of).

 

I do like chimpanzees, but from what I sounds like I wouldn't want to work with them! My dream is to work with Bonobos, hopefully being part of Milwaukee's primate team, which includes a lot of sweet primates!

 

If I was you I would send them an email expressing your interests and goals or begin to volunteer for different organizations to start building up experience.

 

I’m currently only a junior in High School, plus I live a very unpopulated area so there aren’t too many opportunities close for me to get experience at. My closest zoo (Henry Vilas) is an hour away, Milwaukee is about 3 hours away. I’m hoping I can eventually try and get some internships during college!

 

Langurs and macaques in India can be real vicious

 

They actually used langurs in India to scare away the aggressive Rhesus Macaques during the 2010 Indian Games. I think its pretty awesome when you can put a species of monkey to good use and help its reputation; in this case it was the Grey Langur:
Monkeys Deployed to Guard Indian Games

 

Wow , never knew this , interesting and makes sense as there is usually a pecking order in interspecies interactions with primates.

 

Why are the macaques afraid of langurs if the latter is less aggressive? I thought that normally the more dominant species in interspecies interactions is more aggressive, significantly larger or lives in bigger groups.

 

Langurs are way bigger

 

I have no idea , as I dont know very much (beyond the basics) about either macaques or langurs or indeed any other Asian primates.

What I was implying with my comment was that there is typically a pecking order in interspecies interaction among different primates. For example , in Brazil sometimes capuchin monkeys are behaviourally dominant in interactions with marmosets and howler monkeys and even more rarely prey on infants.