Abstract
Masturbation is part of the natural behavioral repertoire of primates, with visual sexual stimuli known to trigger this behavior. Here, we report masturbation events triggered by visual sexual stimulus (VSS) in the South American primate Sapajus libidinosus. We observed a multi-male multi-female captive colony of 17 bearded capuchins between January and October 2014. Over this period, we registered 11 copulation events, 68 attempt copulations, and five masturbation events. The same low-ranking male (named Fu) performed all masturbation events. Fu directly looked at other individuals engaged in sexual displays while he masturbated in three events. The masturbation events associated with VSS lasted up to 2 min and 40 s. Our observations show that VSS can trigger masturbation in capuchin monkeys. The low hierarchy rank of the male, and the consequent lack of mating opportunities in the multi-male multi-female recently formed group in captivity, may have prompted the masturbation events.
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Acknowledgements
We thank all CETRAS-PE Tangara staff and Santuário Três Reinos staff for their assistance during data collection. This study was non-invasive, complied with Brazilian law (SISBIO/ICMBio permit number: 4333-0), and data collection was approved by the UFPE Ethics Committee (CEUA—UFPE License number 23076.060463/2014-56). PC was supported by FACEPE scholarships (IBPG-0549-2.05/13; AMD-0207-2.00/14; IBPG—IBPG-0883-2.05/19) and CAPES (Financial Code 001). CC was supported by FACEPE (BTT-0004-2.04/14). BB was supported by FACEPE (Grant #: APQ-1534-2.04/10; APQ-0143-2.04/14) and CNPq (Grant #: Universal grant 445071/2014-1; CNPq-Productivity grant Pq2 309256/2019-4). AB was supported by a CAPES PNPD grant (Financial code 001).
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Coutinho, P., Barnett, A., Cavalcanti, C. et al. Observation of Masturbation After Visual Sexual Stimuli From Conspecifics in a Captive Male Bearded Capuchin (Sapajus libidinosus). Arch Sex Behav 52, 1333–1337 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10508-022-02475-5
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10508-022-02475-5