Social Spacing
Grooming Behavior and Cooperative Altruism
Maternal Care and Alloparenting
The capuchin lives on a large home range, ranging from 25 hectares to 250 hectares. The size of the range depends on the distribution of food resources, as capuchins increase their range when fruits are scarce to increase the amount of available resources (DiBitetti and Janson, 2001). The annual ranges of capuchins may overlap, but the groups are seldom found together as all capuchin species are territorial (Kleinman et al, 2003; O’Brien and Robinson, 1993). However, capuchins are oftentimes found co-habitating with other monkeys of the Cebidae family. For example, squirrel monkeys follow the capuchins when foraging, saving them time and energy that would normally be spent on finding food for themselves (www.wellingtonzoo.com). Thus, capuchins find the food for the squirrel monkeys without any benefits.
Photo courtesy of: www.primates.com
This webpage was created by Kathleen Tanner in partial fulfillment of requirements for an undergraduate biology class in Animal Behavior at Davidson College in Spring 2005. Questions should be addressed to katanner@davidson.edu.