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Macronutrient and Energy Contributions of Insects to the Diet of a Frugivorous Monkey (Cercopithecus ascanius)

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Abstract

Most extant primates feed on insects to some degree, yet the nutritional contributions of insects to primate diets are poorly characterized. Like many small-bodied frugivorous primates, redtail monkeys (Cercopithecus ascanius) also eat insects. We quantified the nutritional contributions of insects to the diets of female redtail monkeys in Kibale National Park, Uganda, from July 2010 to June 2012 through full day follows (N = 64) using weight-based estimates of food intake. Female redtail monkeys targeted insects for 41 % of feeding bouts, plant reproductive parts (including ripe fruits, unripe fruits, flowers, seeds) for 15 % of feeding bouts, and leaves (including young leaves, mature leaves, leaf petioles, leaf buds) for 17 % of feeding bouts. However, females spent just under 10 % of feeding time on insects, in contrast to 42 % on plant reproductive parts and 39 % on leaves. Redtail monkeys fed primarily on solitary, as opposed to eusocial, insects. Identification of consumed insects is challenging, but of consumed insects that could be identified 74 % were cicadas (order Homoptera), 14 % caterpillars (order Lepidoptera), and 7 % long-horned grasshoppers (order Orthoptera). On a dry matter basis, insects were fairly low in fat (<10 %, except for caterpillars) and high in crude protein content (mean ca. 69 %) compared to other foods, and contained low levels of indigestible chitin. Because insects are small, an insect feeding bout is much shorter than a feeding bout on vegetation or fruit. Despite the small proportion of time spent feeding on insects, redtail monkeys obtained a mean of 24 % of their daily protein intake and 14 % of energy through insectivory, though intake varied widely across females. Our findings demonstrate that female redtail monkeys gain more nutrients than expected given that they spend <10 % of feeding time ingesting insects. The many primates that complement plant diet items with insects may gain substantial nutrition through minimal feeding time.

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Acknowledgments

We thank the Uganda Wildlife Authority and the Uganda National Council for Science and Technology for permission to conduct this research. We are grateful to Hillary Musinguzi, Richard Mutegeki, Moses Musana, and Peter Irumba for their help with data collection. Thank you to Joanna Setchell and two anonymous reviewers for providing helpful comments to earlier versions of this manuscript. Thank you to Caley Johnson, Jenny Paltan, and Rebecca DelliCarpini for help with nutritional analyses, and Kristin Sabbi and Santiago Cassalett for help with statistical analyses. Thank you to Thomas Struhsaker for his advice on observing redtail monkey insectivory. Thank you to Heikki Roininen for providing preliminary identification of some of the insects eaten by redtail monkeys. This research was funded by Hunter College of the City University of New York, The Wieland Fund for Field Anthropology to M. A. H. Bryer; NSF Grant 0922709 to J. M. Rothman, C. A. Chapman, and J. E. Lambert; and Gravida, the National Research Centre for Growth and Development, New Zealand to D. Raubenheimer.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. New York Consortium in Evolutionary Primatology, New York, NY, USA

    Margaret A. H. Bryer & Jessica M. Rothman

  2. Department of Anthropology, Graduate Center of the City University of New York, New York, NY, 10016, USA

    Margaret A. H. Bryer & Jessica M. Rothman

  3. Department of Anthropology and McGill School of Environment, McGill University, Montreal, H3A 2T7, Quebec, Canada

    Colin A. Chapman

  4. Wildlife Conservation Society, Bronx, NY, 10460, USA

    Colin A. Chapman

  5. Charles Perkins Centre, University of Sydney, Sydney, 2006, Australia

    David Raubenheimer

  6. Department of Anthropology, University of Colorado, Boulder, CO, 80309, USA

    Joanna E. Lambert

  7. Department of Anthropology, Hunter College of the City University of New York, New York, NY, 10065, USA

    Jessica M. Rothman

  8. Department of Biology, Graduate Center of the City University of New York, New York, NY, 10016, USA

    Jessica M. Rothman

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  1. Margaret A. H. Bryer
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Bryer, M.A.H., Chapman, C.A., Raubenheimer, D. et al. Macronutrient and Energy Contributions of Insects to the Diet of a Frugivorous Monkey (Cercopithecus ascanius). Int J Primatol 36, 839–854 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10764-015-9857-x

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