School of Arts, Sciences and Humanities, University of São Paulo, Av. Arlindo Bettio, 1000, Prédio CMP1, Sala T6, São Paulo, SP, 03828-000, Brazil.
Neotropical Primates Research Group, São Paulo, Brazil.
Primates. 2023 Mar;64(2):207-213. doi: 10.1007/s10329-023-01052-1. Epub 2023 Feb 15.
The evolutionary roots of care for injured, ill, and disabled group members remain unclear. The same can be said about care for dying and dead group members. Accumulating case reports in a variety of nonhuman primates can shed light on these origins. Here we provide a detailed account of interactions of a wild capuchin monkey mother and other group members with a disabled infant before and after its death. Limb disability caused the infant to be in unstable positions when carried, which appeared to increase the frequency of body readjustments by the adults and may have contributed to its death. After death, no adults other than the mother made contact with the corpse, but four immatures approached and touched it. The mother foraged only on flies surrounding the corpse while carrying it, stopped several times to set the corpse down on the branches, and let it finally fall as she leapt between trees. The difficulty of carrying disabled and dead individuals up in the trees may help to explain the scarcity of reports in platyrrhines, and suggests that terrestriality and increasing ease of bipedality may have contributed to the evolution of these behaviors in primates.
对于受伤、生病和残疾的群体成员的关怀的进化根源仍不清楚。对于临终和死亡的群体成员的关怀也是如此。在各种非人类灵长类动物中积累的病例报告可以揭示这些起源。在这里，我们详细描述了一只野生卷尾猴母亲和其他群体成员在残疾婴儿死亡前后与它的互动。肢体残疾使婴儿在被携带时处于不稳定的位置，这似乎增加了成年人进行身体调整的频率，并可能导致其死亡。死亡后，除了母亲之外，没有其他成年人与尸体接触，但有四只幼崽走近并触摸了它。母亲在携带尸体时只在尸体周围的苍蝇上觅食，多次停下来将尸体放在树枝上，最后在她跳树之间时让它掉落。携带残疾和死亡个体到树上的困难可能有助于解释在阔鼻猴中报告的稀缺性，并表明在树栖性和双足行走的便利性增加可能有助于这些行为在灵长类动物中的进化。
