Social preferences in stump-tailed macaques (Macaca arctoides): effects of companionship, kinship, and rearing.

Social preferences in the directionality of social behavioral patterns in a heterogeneous group of 26 stump-tailed macaques (Macaca arctoides) were examined to see if kin recognition occurred. Four behavioral measures were analyzed: proximity, contact, grooming, and play. Three independent variables were examined: early companionship, condition of early rearing, and kinship. The latter was divided into partrilineal, matrilineal, and shared kinship. Partial correlational analysis showed that social preferences correlated most strongly with companionship, followed by kinship and rearing conditions. Within kinship, patrilineal and matrilineal effects differed markedly, suggesting that natural selection has operated differentially in a species in which normal child-rearing is done by matrilineal kin.