Abstract
In this paper we describe tolerated mouth-to-mouth food transfers in captive adult common marmosets, where an animal approached a conspecific that has recently received a piece of food, opened the other’s mouth forcefully, and picked food pieces out of it. Tolerated mouth-to-mouth food transfers occurred between animals of both sexes. They were observed when the possessor was subordinate as well as when it was dominant, and in four dyads they were observed in both directions. We argue that this behaviour might have a social function and that the cooperative breeding system of marmosets might have facilitated its evolution.
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Acknowledgments
This research was conducted at the Konrad Lorenz Institute for Evolution and Cognition Research in Altenberg, Austria. We are very grateful to Gustl Anzenberger for his valuable comments and Dan Fahey for improving the English of the manuscript. This study was conducted with marmosets that had all been born in captivity and was performed in accordance with the Austrian legal regulations for the use of animals in experiments, as well as the guidelines of the Association for the Study of Animal Behaviour (ASAB). We thank Toshisada Nishida and two anonymous referees for their appreciated comments and constructive criticism.
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Kasper, C., Voelkl, B. & Huber, L. Tolerated mouth-to-mouth food transfers in common marmosets. Primates 49, 153–156 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10329-007-0069-7
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10329-007-0069-7