Allee Laboratory of Animal Behavior, University of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois.
Section of Neurobiology and Behavior, Cornell University, Ithaca, New York.
Am J Primatol. 1981;1(4):389-399. doi: 10.1002/ajp.1350010404.
In a longitudinal study of individually identified wild baboons in Amboseli National Park, Kenya, we collected data on physical development and reproductive maturation. Confirming and extending our earlier results, we demonstrated that the ratio of ages at which developmental milestones occur in the field as compared to those under extensive provisioning or in captivity were approximately 5:3. The age range for some developmental milestones was quite narrow and discrete, while for others there was considerable between-individual variability and more gradual changes. For infants, only the change from pink to gray of the paracallosal skin occurred within a brief age span. For older animals two important developmental events are readily identified and occur within a fairly narrow age range: Rapid enlargement of testes at 5 to 6 years for males and onset of menarche at 4 to 5 ½ years for females. In the present report, we considered some consequences of accelerated or delayed maturation. We further explored the need to employ different age-class criteria for different research problems.
在肯尼亚安博塞利国家公园对个体识别的野生狒狒进行的一项纵向研究中，我们收集了身体发育和生殖成熟的数据。证实并扩展了我们之前的结果，我们表明，在野外发生发育里程碑的年龄与在广泛供应或圈养下发生的年龄之比约为 5:3。一些发育里程碑的年龄范围相当狭窄和离散，而对于其他里程碑，存在相当大的个体间变异性和更渐进的变化。对于婴儿，只有从粉红色到灰色的胼胝体皮肤的变化发生在一个短暂的年龄范围内。对于年龄较大的动物，有两个重要的发育事件很容易识别，并且发生在相当狭窄的年龄范围内：雄性睾丸在 5 到 6 岁时迅速增大，雌性在 4 到 5 岁半时开始初潮。在本报告中，我们考虑了成熟加速或延迟的一些后果。我们进一步探讨了为不同的研究问题采用不同的年龄类别标准的必要性。
