Monday, 22 May 2017

Wallflower center pack baboons find place



Baboons consider best access to both food and safety

Date: May 17, 2017
Source: University of California - Davis

Are you the kind of person who, at a party, tends to be surrounded by friends in the middle of the crowd, or do you prefer to find a quiet corner where you can sit and talk? Recent work by scientists at UC Davis shows that wild baboons behave similarly to humans -- with some animals consistently found in the vanguard of their troop while others crowd to the center or lag in the rear.

Using high-resolution GPS tracking, UC Davis Assistant Professor Margaret Crofoot and her team of researchers continuously monitored the movements of nearly an entire baboon troop in central Kenya to discover how interactions among group-mates influenced where in the troop individuals tended to be found.

"How animals position themselves within their social group can have life or death consequences," explained Crofoot, an anthropologist. "Individuals at the front of their group may get the first crack at any food their group encounters, but they are also more vulnerable to being picked off by predators."


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