Abstract
Among the Macaca species, adult male Japanese macaques are the least likely to perform male care (i.e., affiliative interactions between adult males and immatures, including holding, carrying, and grooming); however, they perform male care for infants, albeit infrequently. We examined 17 cases of male care observed for the first time when the immature was younger than 1 year of age. Eleven of the 31 adult males who remained as central males during the 30-year observation period performed male care. Their age and dominance rank did not influence the occurrence of male care. Most cases were first recorded between the last part of the mating season and the first part of the birth season (January–March), whereas male care was rarely observed during the mating season (October–December). In 12 of the 17 cases, male care ceased within 6 months after the first observation, whereas in the remaining cases, it continued for at least 1 year. In 15 of the 17 cases, males tended to perform male care for matrilineally unrelated female infants of low-ranking mothers. In some cases, the male and infant mother showed grooming interactions for 6 months both before and after the start of male care, whereas such grooming interactions were never recorded either before or after the start of male care in other cases. We also examined some hypotheses on male–immature associations and the probable benefits that males and infants might acquire through male care.
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Acknowledgements
This study was supported in part by a Grant-in-Aid for General Scientific Research (JSPS KAKENHI Grant Number JP 18653078, 20330151, 23653225, 26285166, and 19K12731) to M.N. from the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS). We thank the staff of the Kanbanotaki Natural Park of Maniwa City for their kind help and encouragement throughout the present study. The following people kindly gave us useful information on male care that they observed in their groups of Japanese macaques: Drs. T. Kanazawa, J. Yasuda, M. M. Pavelka, Y. Kaigaishi, and Mrs. M. Kishimoto, A. Takizawa, M. Yamada, T. Shimomura, and T. Suzuki. We express our sincere thanks to all of them. We are grateful to Dr. B. Thierry and to two anonymous reviewers for their thoughtful reviews, which greatly helped in improving this manuscript. The present study was approved by the Animal Experimentation Committee of the Graduate School of Human Sciences, Osaka University.
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Nakamichi, M., Ueno, M. & Yamada, K. Male care in a free-ranging group of Japanese macaques (Macaca fuscata). Primates 62, 971–980 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10329-021-00948-0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10329-021-00948-0