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Published: February 26th 2010
Steady rain outside and 59% battery power on the laptop means a blog post and a break from the monkeys I’ve come to know so well. One group of tamarins in particular, called FC, has earned a special place in my heart. (And in my head, as they’ve managed to invade my dreams.) Thus far, FC is the only group that has been successfully trapped and tagged, so we’ve spent a majority of our time following this group and gathering as much behavioral data as possible. I know I’ve mentioned FC before, but I thought I’d describe the group and their mannerisms in a little more depth for anyone interested. That’s what this project is about, after all!
One of the first tasks upon arrival here at CICRA involved looking at photographs of the individuals in the FC group, with their different beaded necklaces and bleached tail patterns used for identification, and trying fervently to memorize which was which. Being the nerd that I am, I religiously studied the cheat sheet in the hopes of embedding the distinct identities into my brain. Of course, this all went to shit the first day we were out in the field, as
I was in a state of frenzied, overwhelming panic while trying to follow these tiny dark blobs high up in the canopy through bamboo and swamps. I knew this was going to be tougher than I thought when I couldn’t correctly identify which blob was a saddleback tamarin (or a monkey for that matter…), much less distinguish individual members of the group. However, you find that in the field, you learn fast out of necessity, and it was only a couple of days before I could correctly ID the group members.
As we followed the group more and more, we began to pick up on the characteristic traits of each individual and came to know them as more than a string of colored beads. The saddleback with what is arguably the coolest bling is RC, who is the radiocollared animal in the group (hence the name). Though I was at first taken aback by RC’s sassy attitude, I’ve come to respect her independence and mad foraging skills. You can often find RC a bit removed from the rest of the group, consistently foraging in and around bark and dead leaves for the ever-delicious katydid/grasshopper/spider, with quite an impressive success
rate. She’s also smart enough to forage far enough away from the group that she can enjoy the fruits of her labor in peace, most of the time. More to come on that later. RC’s personality contrasts with that of GPG, the other adult female in the group. Initially more passive, GPG appears to have grown increasingly comfortable with her position within the group and now seems to spend the most time with the twins. However, she’s actually my least favorite in the group, as I find her a bit dull yet quietly manipulative (anthropomorphizing at its best here).
GBR, the adult male in the group, has been likened to a “thug” who orders his women around and can quite accurately be described as the big daddy. Basically, we’ve seen GBR mate with both females in the group, and he also goes through periodic phases where he’ll decide to aggressively chase either RC or GPG, or both, lunging and biting at them. One time, we even observed him grab RC’s tail and fling her off a branch! (That may be a bit of an exaggeration, but he somehow managed to physically force her off the branch and she consequently
plummeted to the forest floor, so I feel justified in my description). At any rate, another selfish personality quirk is that GBR frequently approaches the females and not-so-subtly sticks his head under their hands, his indication that he would like to be groomed, though he very rarely reciprocates. Always the groomed, never the groomer.
Of course, the project focuses on alloparenting and thus the behavior of the twins is of utmost importance, particularly in terms of their interactions with the adults. They are, shockingly, referred to as Twin 1 and Twin 2. Erin, another fellow field assistant, has described the twins as an “ewok-sea turtle” hybrid (not really sure what that means), to provide you with some mental image, though I would guess that it’s more confusing than helpful. They do quite look like Ewoks, though (Star Wars reference for those of you who don’t know, but I hope that everyone reading this blog is cool enough that it’s a given). Anyways, the twins have grown in a big way and have developed their own unique mannerisms, a transition which has been incredible to see. I think that my love affair with Twin 1 started when I saw him
chasing RC for about half an hour in an attempt to steal the lizard that she had caught and was trying, in vain, to consume. You have to respect that kind of dedication. Even more impressive was the fact that after all of his hard work, he managed to swipe the lizard from RC! Never mind the fact that he foolishly dropped it about 30 seconds later, I was still quite taken with his obvious fixation on food. Basically, Twin 1 is always either eating, trying to foraging (with varying success rates), or attempting to steal food from anyone else who has it. Recently we’ve noticed that Twin 1 is also carried more often on an adult’s back than Twin 2, who is rarely carried anymore. Who can blame him for hitching a free ride? Erin refers to him as a brat, but I’ve got to respect his survival instincts and perseverance. Clearly my favorite. Twin 2, on the other hand, has a less dynamic personality; he tends to move around and forage on his own, which is all well and good but, personally, I find him a bit dull. You can always count on Twin 1 to create some
drama. In the field, Erin and I will often get into twin debates, which can get surprisingly heated as we are both equally passionate and stubborn about our twin preference, and spend significant amounts of time looking for evidence to solidify our respective positions.
The tamarins exhibit some behavior that is pretty interesting to observe. One of my favorites is lovingly referred to as the GP (the tamarin equivalent of a DP in some senses). The GPs, or grooming parties, consist of an adorable huddling together of the group members and subsequent grooming of each other’s hair, which can literally last hours. This is when the tamarins look most peaceful and content; sometimes they’ll stretch out and lounge comfortably as others set to work inspecting their body. I’ve even seen an adult being groomed attempt to get up, only to be pushed back down by the adult grooming him! They’ve got their priorities in order. Seeing the tamarins foraging might be my favorite behavior to observe, however, because it’s amazing to see them pushing aside bark and peering under leaves in the hopes of uncovering some juicy gem. The other day, I actually saw a saddleback hop onto the
ground a few feet in front of me and then jump back onto the tree with a huge brown, bulbous spider dangling from its mouth. Needless to say, I was pretty impressed/disgusted and continued to watch as the other adult tamarins in the group caught wind of this discovery and began to chase the poor guy around in the hopes of stealing a portion of the treat. (Clearly, this is only acceptable behavior when performed by Twin 1.) It’s not all food stealing, though, as food sharing is also observed. The only context in which I’ve seen this occur is when the adults decide to bestow some of their spoils onto the relatively helpless twins. Other times, the twins will simply sit next to an adult, eagerly watching him eat and reaching in vain towards the food that the adult is quite content to hoard.
I’ve talked a lot about the twins being carried and I guess I should clarify what that means exactly: sometimes the twins will hop onto an adult’s back and the adult will continue to travel or rest with one or both twins on its back. The twins may be either awake or sleeping. This is really crucial in the research on alloparenting, as it’s very telling of parent-offspring interactions and infant care, and can be quite a complex behavior. For example, factors to be considered include who initiated the carrying, whether the response was positive or negative, how long the twins were carried and any transitions to other adults or substrates. Sometimes an adult will struggle with an infant attempting to hop onto his back; horrendous sounding squeals and some swatting often ensue as the adult pushes the twin away from him or her. Since the twins have gotten so big now (they are three months old), they are carried much less; in fact, it’s impressive to see an adult moving with both twins nowadays due to the substantial bulk that it adds to the adult’s frame.
To finish up, one of the things that I found most exciting is when the FC group encounters another saddleback group. Conflicts often result, complete with chasing, biting, lunging and vocalizing galore. The sounds that the tamarins can make during such squabbles verge on ungodly and exaggerate an already tense situation. A bit stressful at times, it’s fascinating to watch as two groups converge.
Well, this has been a more informative blog post and I’ll try to make the next one more exciting! Thanks to anyone who’s been reading the blog. Send me updates from home and I hope all is well!
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Nick
non-member comment
DP?
It was nice of you to explain what a GP was because I wouldn't have guessed right. I do want to point out that you referenced it to a DP, which I have heard as a porn term and not in any other sense. Because I know you are wondering what I mean now, the only thing that I have heard a DP refer to is a double penetration, and if that is what you are watching monkey's do you have some problems. (Note-you may want to edit/delete this post before allowing everyone to see it) On my end things are going well but I recently have come to the conclusion that I am spending way to much time and money trying to amplify and then sequence these three parts of an interesting gene at work. The PCR is of course acting up and it has been a major pain to trouble shoot it. Sounds vaguely familiar... Keep the stories up! Nick