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Male responsiveness to infant distress calls in free-ranging vervet monkeys

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Summary

Playback experiments were conducted of five groups of free-ranging vervet monkeys (Cercopithecus aethiops) to determine whether an adult male's responsiveness to infant distress calls was a function of (1) paternal certainty, (2) dominance rank, (3) predator presence, (4) number of males, (5) number of infants, (6) infant's mother's rank and/or (7) infant's age. Results from these experiments reveal that paternal certainty was the only factor that could directly explain the differences between males in the duration of response to distress calls.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Anthropology, University of California, 341 Haines Hall, 90024, Los Angeles, California, USA

    Marc D. Hauser

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  1. Marc D. Hauser
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Hauser, M.D. Male responsiveness to infant distress calls in free-ranging vervet monkeys. Behav Ecol Sociobiol 19, 65–71 (1986). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00303844

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00303844

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