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| Macaca fuscata photo credit Yosemite |
Isolation
is hard for most of us primates; whether we are human or other we are mostly
social species. The Orang is perhaps the exception. The Japanese Macaque is
certainly social to the extent of sharing a warm bath in the winter.
If
we put these creatures in a small cell, we find that their behavior becomes
erratic and is classified as abnormal by the animal psychologists. Given the
choice of a social hot tub and a small cage, most of us would probably be drawn
towards the hot tub.
Of
course, a good selection of movies would be welcomed and our friends Macaca fuscata is no exception according
to the recent study by Ogua and Matsuzawa in the latest issue of J. Applied
Animal welfare Science (1).
Their
study group of macaques were spending about a third of their time in abnormal
behavior until they were awarded privileges. These were videos and the macaques
could turn these on themselves. They showed distinct preferences for movies
with people or in animated movies, there being a world shortage of movie stars
from the Macaca fuscata population.
Their
attention span lasted for most of the movies – nearly two-thirds and it could
probably have been more if the subject matter had been better tailored. Their bad behavior dropped during movie time
and even afterwards it had fallen to only spending a quarter of their time
being abnormal.
As
I don’t have a communal hot tub handy, I’m looking forward to the good weather
so that I can be social and get away from videos with people and animations. I’m
sure my abnormal behavior rate will drop in proportion.
T. Ogura & T. Matsuzawa, J. Appl. Animal Welfare Sci., 9,
221, (2012).
