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14 - Traditions in wild white-faced capuchin monkeys
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- By Susan Perry, Assistant Professor in the Department of Anthropology, University of California, Los Angeles, Melissa Panger, Department of Anthropology, George Washington University, 2110 G St. NW, Washington, DC 20052, USA, Lisa M. Rose, Department of Anthropology and Sociology, University of British Columbia. 6303 NW Marine Drive, Vancouver, British Columbia, V6T, Mary Baker, Department of Anthropology, Whittier College, 13406 Philadelphia St., Whittier, CA 90608, USA, Julie Gros-Louis, Department of Psychology, University of Indiana, 1101 E. 10th St., Bloomington, IN 47405, USA, Katherine Jack, Department of Anthropology, Appalachian State University, Boone, NC 28608, USA, Katherine C. Mackinnon, Department of Sociology and Criminal Justice, Saint Louis University, 3500 Lindell Boulevard, St. Louis, MO 63103, USA, Joseph Manson, Max-Planck-Institut für evolutionäre Anthropologie, Inselstraße 22, 04103 Leipzig, Germany, Linda Fedigan, Department of Anthropology, University of Calgary, Calgary, Alberta T2N 1N4, Canada, Kendra Pyle, Department of Biology, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA 19104, USA
- Edited by Dorothy M. Fragaszy, University of Georgia, Susan Perry, University of California, Los Angeles
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- Book:
- The Biology of Traditions
- Published online:
- 27 October 2009
- Print publication:
- 03 July 2003, pp 391-425
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- Chapter
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Summary
Introduction
Primatologists have long recognized that social learning could play an important role in food choice and food processing in primates, since the discovery (by Itani in 1958) of innovative food-processing techniques disseminated among Japanese macaques (see Ch. 10 for a review of subsequent findings). It is somewhat surprising that, after the initial discovery of the importance of social learning in Japanese macaques, practically all subsequent research on social learning in wild nonhuman primates has been on apes (e.g. Boesch, 1996a, 1996b; Boesch and Boesch-Achermann, 2000; Boesch and Tomasello, 1998; McGrew, 1992, 1998; van Schaik, Deaner, and Merrill, 1999; Whiten et al., 1999; see Chs. 10 and 11). To remedy the gap in what we know about social learning in natural settings in other primates, and because a truly comparative framework is necessary to understand the biological underpinnings of social learning (see Ch. 1), we began a comprehensive study of social learning in wild capuchin monkeys (Cebus spp.). Our study investigates the probable role of social learning in a number of behavioral domains.
Capuchins seem particularly likely to exhibit extensive reliance on learning, and social learning in particular, for the following reasons (Fragaszy, Visalberghi, and Fedigan, 2003). Several aspects of capuchin ecology promote behavioral flexibility. First, the genus Cebus occupies a wider geographic area than any other New World genus apart from Alouatta (Emmons, 1997), and it uses many different habitat types. Therefore, capuchins face a wide variety of environmental challenges.