Biology Department, Florida Southern College, Lakeland, Florida, USA.
DuMond Conservancy for Primates and Tropical Forests, Miami, Florida, USA.
Am J Primatol. 2023 Oct;85(10):e23539. doi: 10.1002/ajp.23539. Epub 2023 Jul 28.
Nocturnal mammals have unique sensory adaptations to facilitate foraging at night. Owl monkeys (Aotus spp.) are pair-living nocturnal platyrrhines adept at capturing insect prey under low-light conditions. Owl monkeys use acoustic and chemical cues in intraspecific communication and use olfaction to detect fruit as they forage. We conducted an experiment to determine which cues (auditory, olfactory, and visual) Aotus nancymaae rely upon when foraging for insects. We scored the behavior of 23 captive owl monkeys during a series of trials in which monkeys were provided sensory boxes with insect cues either present (experimental box) or absent (control box). Each cue was tested alone and in combination with all other cues (multimodal cues). We used generalized linear mixed models to determine which cues elicited the greatest behavioral response. Owl monkeys approached and spent more time near experimental boxes than control boxes. Male owl monkeys were quicker than their female partners to approach the sensory boxes, suggesting that males may be less neophobic than females. The owl monkeys exhibited behaviors associated with olfaction and foraging (e.g., sneezing, trilling) during trials with multimodal cues and when only olfactory cues were present. When only visual or auditory cues were present, owl monkeys exhibited fewer foraging-related behaviors. After approaching a sensory box, however, they often touched boxes containing visual cues. A. nancymaae may rely on olfactory cues at night to detect a food source from several meters away and then rely more on visual cues once they are closer to the food source. Their use of sensory cues during insect foraging differs from nocturnal strepsirrhines, possibly reflecting physiological constraints associated with phylogeny, given that owl monkeys evolved nocturnality secondarily from a more recent diurnal ancestor.
夜行性哺乳动物具有独特的感官适应性，以促进夜间觅食。猫头鹰猴（Aotus spp.）是成对生活的夜行性阔鼻猴，擅长在低光照条件下捕捉昆虫猎物。猫头鹰猴在种内交流中使用声音和化学线索，并在觅食时使用嗅觉来检测水果。我们进行了一项实验，以确定 Aotus nancymaae 在觅食昆虫时依赖哪些线索（听觉、嗅觉和视觉）。我们在一系列试验中记录了 23 只圈养猫头鹰猴的行为，在这些试验中，猴子被提供了带有昆虫线索的感官箱，这些线索要么存在（实验箱），要么不存在（对照箱）。每种线索都单独进行了测试，并与所有其他线索（多模态线索）进行了组合测试。我们使用广义线性混合模型来确定哪些线索引起了最大的行为反应。猫头鹰猴接近并在实验箱附近停留的时间多于对照箱。雄性猫头鹰猴比它们的雌性伴侣更快地接近感官箱，这表明雄性可能比雌性更不怕生。当存在多模态线索或只有嗅觉线索时，猫头鹰猴表现出与嗅觉和觅食相关的行为（例如打喷嚏、颤音）。然而，当只有视觉或听觉线索存在时，猫头鹰猴表现出较少的觅食相关行为。在接近感官箱后，它们经常触摸装有视觉线索的箱子。A. nancymaae 可能在夜间依赖嗅觉线索从几米远的地方探测到食物源，然后在靠近食物源时更多地依赖视觉线索。它们在昆虫觅食过程中使用感官线索的方式与夜行性灵长类动物不同，这可能反映了与进化相关的生理限制，因为猫头鹰猴是从更近的昼行祖先那里二次进化为夜行性的。
