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Monkeys using perfume? Study investigates

Nov. 17, 2006
Hồng , SG , 0907682900


Move over Ralph Lau­ren, Dol­ce & Gab­bana and oth­er pur­vey­ors of gla­m­or per­fumes. The next rage in fra­grance may be Eau de spi­der mon­key.

Sci­en­tists have been re­porting sight­ings of wild spi­der mon­keys rub­bing them­selves with chewed-up leaves that may func­tion as per­fumes. Although it’s un­pro­ven that they do it spe­ci­fi­cal­ly to take on an aro­ma, mount­ing ev­i­dence points that way, the in­vest­i­ga­t­ors say.



Black-handed spider monkey (courtesy rainforestanimals.com)


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The scents “may play a role in the con­text of so­cial com­mu­ni­ca­tion, pos­si­bly for sig­nal­ing of so­cial sta­tus or to in­c­rease sex­u­al at­trac­t­ive­ness,” sci­en­tists wrote in the Nov. 14 ad­vance on­line is­sue of the re­search jour­nal Pri­ma­tes.

In the report, Mat­thi­as Las­ka and col­leagues of the Uni­ver­si­ty of Mu­nich Med­i­cal School in Ger­ma­ny de­s­c­ribed watch­ing a group of 10 free-ranging black-hand­ed spi­der mon­keys for a to­tal of 250 hours.

The species, formally named Ate­les ge­of­froyi, is one of four spe­cies of spi­der mon­keys—small, ac­ro­bat­ic pri­mates that fling them­selves among tree­tops and live be­t­ween sou­th­ern Bra­zil and cen­t­ral Mex­i­co.

Working in Mexico, Laska’s team re­cord­ed “20 epi­sodes of self-an­oint­ing, that is, the ap­pli­ca­tion of scent-bear­ing ma­te­ri­al on­to the body,” all by two males.

“The an­i­mals used the leaves of three spe­cies of plants,” in­clud­ing wild cel­ery, they wrote. “The leaves of all three plant spe­cies spread an in­ten­sive and ar­o­mat­ic odor when crushed.”



Wild celery (courtesy U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service)


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To show that the mish­mash in­deed func­tions as a sort of co­logne, re­search­ers would have to dem­on­s­trate that it isn’t be­ing used for a dif­fer­ent pur­pose. Pri­mates and oth­er an­i­mals are wide­ly re­ported to use cer­tain plants as med­i­ca­tions, and some­times rub them­selves with nat­u­ral sub­stances that act as bug re­pel­lents.

However, a small but grow­ing num­ber of re­search­ers in re­cent years have ar­gued that some an­i­mals may an­oint them­selves with scents for so­cial pur­poses.

Laska’s team found, in ac­cord with a past study, that the spi­der mon­keys swiped the fra­grant mix on­ly on their arm­pits and breast­bone ar­eas, and that this oc­curred in­de­pen­d­ent­ly of time of day, sea­son, tem­per­a­ture or hu­mid­i­ty. The previous study—published in 2000—also found, con­sis­tent with the new one, that males do it more often than females.

All these con­sid­er­a­tions, ac­cord­ing to the auth­ors of both stu­dies, clash with the idea that the lo­tions func­tion as bug re­pel­lents or skin med­i­ca­tions.

Laska’s team recorded three plants being used: the Alamos pea tree, Brong­niar­tia alam­osa­na; the trum­pet tree Ce­cro­pia ob­tu­si­fo­lia; and wild cel­ery, Api­um gra­ve­olens. The 2000 study, by Chris­ti­na J. Camp­bell of the Uni­ver­si­ty of Ca­li­for­nia, Ber­ke­ley, found Ate­les ge­of­froyi in Pa­na­ma us­ing three other plants. All from the Ru­ta­ceae or ci­t­rus fa­m­i­ly, these in­c­luded key lime.