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Almost Human A Journey into the World of Baboons by Shirley C. Strum excerpts part 15
I knew what the males were not doing, and I could describe what they were doing, but I did not have any explanation for why. What did dominance mean? What were the uses and advantages of aggression? Why did males spend so much time and effort making friends with females and infants? Why did a male move so cautiously when he transferred into a new troop?
I had other questions, too: Why wasn't I seeing more violence? When the baboons did fight, why weren't more males injured? I could tell from watching Peggy's family that males exerted what could only be called self-control; I could see how restraint was developed during play, and the same type of control was noticeable in the occasional more serious fights among adults.
Paul, Peggy's oldest son, was especially hair-raising to watch in play. He liked to join groups of smaller baboons in wild free-for-alls in which three or four monkeys would gang up on one. But just when the situation started to get serious for the victim, they'd switch to another target. Once in a while the overexcited youngsters would get carried away and the playful melees would turn aggressive, but since every-one wanted to continue playing, the aggression was usually controlled and short-lived. Important skills were learned in these mock fights, and it was in this playful arena that dominance ranks were disputed and established among the adolescent males.
Paul had to display extraordinary restraint when he played with his brother Patrick. Coming full speed from one corner would be Paul, thirty-three pounds of firm, solid muscle; in the other would crouch Patrick, who at that time weighed barely six and a half pounds, and whose biggest "muscle" was his penis! Paul roared up to the infant, then screeched to a halt, contorting himself in order to get down to Patrick's level Paul held his strength in check for nearly fifteen minutes as he wrestled with his little brother. Such self-control on the part of a hormonally active male was typical.
This gave me a new idea Would studying adolescent males help solve the mystery of the adults? These immature animals were in transition, moving from the conservative, predictable, well-ordered female system to the dynamic and to me unpredictable male system. How, exactly, did they make this switch? What were the overriding principles that governed their behavior?
Before I began to study the males in earnest, I went through a number of life changes myself. I had returned to California in January 1974, worked on my thesis and in September obtained a teaching position at the University of California in San Diego. After visiting my family and friends there, I returned to Kenya in the summer of 1975.
Coming back to Kekopey was like a rendezvous with a lover I'd never expected to see again. It wasn't that the dreams I'd had in which the baboons hung banners from the trees reading "Welcome back, Shirley! We missed you!" came true. It was better than that; the animals continued to ignore me for the most part, and I was able to travel inconspicuously through the troop just as I had earlier, identifying old friends, marking the growth of youngsters and discovering new babies that had been born in my absence.
My visit was short and at the end of the summer I returned to California and my teaching responsibilities. But I left the baboons under the watchful eyes of Hugh and Perry Gilmore, graduate students at the University of Pennsylvania. Hugh was doing his doctoral research on baboon communication.
Now, in July of 1976, I was back with the baboons and ready to face the challenge of the males head-on. I not only had to decide whom to watch but how to watch. In my previous stints, I had switched from animal to animal, spending thirty- minutes watching one, then moving on to the next on my list. Such a schedule meant that I couldn't devote more time to any one individual than to another; nor could I give in to the temptation of just watching whatever exciting event was happening at any given moment This careful control of my observations gave me confidence that when it came time to compare the behavior of individuals, the results would not be contaminated by unconscious personal biases. But there was too much going on to be completely narrow-minded. I appeased my curiosity and added more information to my study by supplementing my main observations with a variety of other techniques that could be carried out simultaneously. Brad and Trouble
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Almost Human A Journey into the World of Baboons by Shirley C. Strum excerpts part 16
I continued to watch Paul and Patrick closely, at the same time keeping careful records on Sherlock. By March 1977, he had taught a great deal, both about males and about leaving home. Sherlock was my favorite adolescent; perhaps the two weeks we'd shared earlier, in August 1976, had forged a special bond between us, because he continued to be my most interesting and challenging subject. Within two months Sherlock left the Pumphouse Gang, and I decided I had to follow him. There were many days when I was his only companion as he roamed Kekopey in search of other troops, each time eventually returning to Pumphouse. The day he made his final decision to leave his natal group, I, too, had to decide whether it was time for me to transfer as well.
Paul and Sherlock resembled each other in many ways. Both had intense interest in other troops, assumed a vigilant posture when another group appeared and were among the first to investigate when it came closer. Both remained partially tied to their families while trying to start a different life with other male and female adults. It was Sherlock though, who had made greater strides along the road that compels an adolescent to leave home. At first, he simply moved to the edge of the troop. No one was actually forcing him out; he lust seemed to have become a more peripheral member than before. His attention was always elsewhere, always, always searching for some other troop, in particular the Eburru Cliffs group.
Soon "peripheral" meant "solitary." I would often find Sherlock halfway between the Pumphouse sleeping cliffs and the open grasslands where Eburru Cliffs liked to feed This solitary existence was actually an illusion; Sherlock never let himself lose sight of one or the other troop. When he followed Eburru Cliffs, it was always at a great distance, with, as the hours passed, many agitated glances at the cliff line where the Pumphouse Gang had last been seen. Sherlock was extremely nervous. When Pumphouse finally returned to its previous night's sleeping site, an excited Sherlock would throw intense greetings to his age mates, Sean and Ian, from a quarter of a mile away.
Sherlock wavered back and forth, not just between roles but between troops. I followed. Watching him try to make up his mind was fascinating: one day he would be hovering on the edge of Pumphouse in self-imposed exile, the next he would be wandering off again. When he returned, he would move right into the middle of Pumphouse activities, taking up his previous life exactly where he'd left it, sitting and grooming with his family, trying to initiate friendships with females and even making a play for one or two receptive ones. Yet the following day he'd take another side trip, this time with a few younger adolescents tagging along in their own particular version of an all-male band, Sherlock leading. But what a leader! When the foray ended, Sherlock the Brave rushed back to rejoin Pumphouse, running right into his mother's arms and relaxing for the first time all day.
Sherlock seemed unable to come to any definite decision, and those around him were confused as well. Even Anne was hesitant at her son's approach if he'd been absent for a few days. Only with his baby sister, Alexandra, and his youngest brother, Alan, did he find a ready welcome, but it was Alexandra and Alan who got Sherlock into the trouble that ultimately seemed to tip the balance. There was something delightfully touching about Sherlock's behavior with his family. Alexandra enjoyed sliding and jumping on him, and often nestled in his lap; Sherlock always responded, when he wasn't asked to do so. They made a marvelous picture. Sherlock dwarfed the tiny black figure of Alexandra, who was half hidden by his hairy bulk, only an ear, eye and nose peeking out to indicate there was a baby there at all. Brad and Trouble
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Almost Human A Journey into the World of Baboons by Shirley C. Strum excerpts part 17
I was certainly learning about the adolescent males and about what it meant to be part of the adult male system, which seemed infinitely more complex than I had imagined. Each breakthrough in understanding was accompanied by a new and puzzling riddle of behavior
it was now 1978, six years since my initial visit to Kenya, and every so often, just before falling asleep, I would remember my first glimpse of that old truck's motto: No hurry in Africa. There was no irony in this. I wasn't dallying, and the baboons were being marvelously cooperative, but I sometimes felt it would take me a decade to finish my work with the males.
And what about my other life, my life in California with my family and friends? I spent my trips back there trying to explain my ideas and philosophy to my parents, who felt they'd lost a daughter and received very little in return; to my friends, who kept worrying about my future and introducing me to eligible men; to my colleagues--and, especially, to myself.
It's important, I'd tell them. it has to do with all of us, with our pasts and our futures. What I'm discovering is important, but its not easy and it's not quick. Forgive me, I sometimes wanted to say. Understand me.
But why, they asked, couldn't I simply stay in California and study people instead of baboons? I could certainly learn as much, and I could begin to lead a "real" life.
True, I could study people; I'd have a great advantage: I could ask my subjects about what happened at certain times, what they were feeling and thinking, what seemed important or trivial to them. But there would be many disadvantages--not the least being that human subjects can lie. I remember one classic study that spanned nearly a decade. It was five years after the study began that the subjects informed the anthropologist studying them that they had lied to him about everything; now, since they felt they could trust him, they would tell him the truth!
When one studies animals, there are no problems with lying, but there is the problem of how to understand a creature that does not talk. We often forget that we are animals ourselves--that we watch the outside world with specialized senses, with a brain that is geared to integrate this information in a specific way and with a set of emotions strongly invested in one view of how the world works or should work, Many early interpretations of animal behavior were unconsciously anthropomorphic, projections of human behavior onto animals. The problem was greatest in studies of monkeys and apes, since our biological closeness to another creature influences our ability and desire to view it in human terms. It is more difficult to guess what two insects are doing than to intuit the behavior of chimpanzees; and it is even more difficult nor to assume what is happening when we watch the higher primates, because we are so alike and can understand so much more of their communications and emotions.
It was in large part for these reasons that the earliest studies done in this century often went astray. It is easy for us to spot the flaws in E. Kempt's study, published in 1917, in which he concluded that homosexuality was a natural stage in the development of adult human sexuality. He watched rhesus macaques that had been caged together specifically for this study. His observations were correct; he saw the adult males mounting one another frequent, ignoring the females that were caged along with them. Ergo, male homosexual monkeys, he concluded. There were two problems with this interpretation. Primates use many social signals that are derived from sexual behavior yet do not necessarily denote sexual interest. Mounting and grasping another male by the hips can be a greeting or a statement of rank; it is rarely actually sexual. Furthermore, the lack of sexual interest that this particular group of monkeys displayed toward their female cagemates could easily be explained: none of the females had reached sexual maturity. Brad and Trouble

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Almost Human A Journey into the World of Baboons by Shirley C. Strum excerpts part 18
Smart baboons. Everywhere I looked I saw socially smart animals. As social diplomats, they employed finesse--social strategies, sophisticated maneuvers and reciprocity--for their very survival. I had discovered extraordinary intelligence, planning and insight in their interactions with one another, both as individuals and as members of real or constructed families.
Just how smart were they? What were the limits to these newly uncovered dimensions of the "minds" of baboons? Some answers to these questions came as 1 reviewed a remarkable incident that demonstrated group learning: Pumphouse becoming sophisticated predators, real hunters.. Bob Harding, Pumphouse's first observer, had already documented that the baboons killed and ate hares, young antelope and birds. But the troop had been opportunistic then; it neither hunted down the animals in a coherent, premeditated fashion, nor did it scavenge for dead animals; the adult males simply collected the prey they came across, usually young animals hidden in thickets or tall grass.
In 1973, during my first year, Pumphouse became truly predatory, and did so rather suddenly. One or the reasons was that Kekopey was unusual because there were few dangerous predators around, either as potential baboon killers or as competitors for prey. Kekopey was also the home of just the right species--Thomson's gazelles. These "tommies" were an appropriate size and lived in herds that made them easier to find than other secretive smarter antelopes like dik-dik and steinbok.
Until 1973, Pumphouse was no more predatory than their Amboseli National Park counterparts, who lived in constant danger from big cats arid other predators. I first noticed the change in the females, who seemed more interested and involved in eating meat when one of the Pumphouse males had a prey. The youngsters joined in, snatching up scraps from the little that was left by their mothers. Then females began to try for their own prey, lunging at hares and antelopes.
But the most impressive change was in the behavior of the males. It happened over a period of months, and it was Rad alone who was primarily responsible. He was a young male with a keen interest in meat, up to this point, Carl had been the most persistent hunter, and had exercised an overbearing influence on Rad from early on, excluding him from many opportunities. Then Carl suffered a severe injury to his arm, and Rad came into his own. Unencumbered, he had a field day, adding his own individual touch to baboon predation.
Rad was like Naomi, hanging around the edge or the troop but not really peripheral to its workings. Unlike Naomi, however, he didn't mind lagging behind or rushing ahead. He appeared less tied to the troop than most males--certainly less than Carl or Sumner, the main predators. Soon he began leaving the troop to observe a nearby herd of Thomson's gazelles, hoping to find a young fawn hidden in the grass. After catching it and enjoying his meal in splendid isolation, he would return to Pumphouse covered with blood, so that there could be no mistaking what he'd been up to,
The other males were aware of what Rad was doing, but at first took no action; they simply watched him leave and return. As he became more successful, however, they began to pay more attention, shifting to better positions so as to observe his activities more carefully. Then they joined in. At first it wasn't to try and help Rad; each had his own selfish intentions.
Then an incident occurred that seemed to change the way the males hunted until that point, even when several of them went after a tommy baby, they chased it in any direction often out onto the open plain. On this occasion, Rad closed in on a group of tommies, scattering the animals, surprising a mother and fawn and almost succeeding in grabbing the baby. Then he chased in earnest, running at full speed, trying to get close enough for a second lunge. Over the hill came the rest of the males. Rad was at the end of his endurance; baboons can run fast, but not for any length of time. Just as Rad gave up, Sumner took over, with Big Sam and Brutus also converging on the prey. The chase turned into a relay race, one male running after the fawn and another taking over when the first one tired. Finally Big Sam chased the young antelope right into Brutus's arms. Brad and Trouble
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Almost Human A Journey into the World of Baboons by Shirley C. Strum excerpts part 19
When I looked at the baboon world through "baboon spectacles," I saw a complicated landscape, characterized by sophistication and social intelligence, populated by animals with long memories who, relying on social reciprocity, were of necessity nice to one another. In this world, males and females shared a complementary importance in the life of the group. When I looked at the baboon world through my own academic lenses, I saw what I had been taught to see, which was something quite different. Many issues, including aggression, dominance and sexual roles, went out of focus as I changed from one pair of glasses to the other.
It was now becoming obvious that the clear, sturdy, unambiguous framework I had brought with me from Berkeley, simply buttressed and functionally elegant, had become transmogrified. In its place had risen a heretical, complex, slightly threatening structure, parts of which were totally unexpected despite being well grounded in the day-to-day realities of baboon lives. This structure grew as my discoveries grew, continually open to new findings. The foundations of my inherited work--the concepts of aggression and dominance--had simultaneously become less important and more interesting when placed in the new view I was constructing.
Up until the 1930s, scientists thought of aggression as both abnormal dysfunctional, since, to them, it appeared disruptive to the basic fabric of social life. The pioneering ethologists, including Konrad Lorenz, famous for his popular as well as scientific books, fundamentally changed his position. They began to look at animals from a new evolutionary perspective, one that inevitably turned aggression into adaptive behavior. It became normal rather than abnormal, central rather than perverse; aggression was the way in which animals solved the critical problems of competition and defense.
As such, aggression came to be known as an important evolutionary feature of animal society. It soon also became vital in another way: aggression frequently resulted in dominance hierarchies which controlled and organized the interaction between individuals and, through those individuals, the group itself. Assuming as most biologists did, that all essential resources were limited, an individual depended upon aggression and dominance for both survival and success. Thus, competition, reproduction, defense, aggression and dominance became inextricably linked in models of both animal and human societies.
Anthropologists such as Washburn contributed another dimension to the developing perspective on aggression: the importance of functional anatomy and a knowledge of primate evolution. Many physical differences between male and female monkeys and apes seemed to result directly from their different aggressive behavior. The conclusion was obvious: primates have the biological basis for aggression, use this equipment frequently and are highly rewarded when successful.
With this perspective in mind, Washburn turned his attention to humans, attempting to chart the development and possible transformation of aggression during evolution. First, it was obvious that humans lacked the nonhuman primate anatomy of aggression. Since aggression was an important means of communication about competition and defense, Washburn inferred that another factor must have been used instead. Human language was his prime candidate. If hominids could talk about issues of competition and defense, they might no longer need the special physical means to convey aggressive intentions, threats and displays. If so, language could have opened the way for a social system in which aggressive behavior was not constantly rewarded, as it appeared to be in nonhuman primate groups.
Brad and Trouble
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Almost Human A Journey into the World of Baboons by Shirley C. Strum excerpts part 20
In the summer of 1979 I returned for a teaching stint in California feeling smug and satisfied; the Gilgil Baboon Project was doing well. Within three weeks, entirely without warning, everything changed. Pumphouse began to raid the crops so carefully nurtured by the farmers. A few more settlers had gradually moved to Kekopey during the past three years, setting up their houses and planting their fields in the middle of the baboons' home range. To Begin with there had been no conflicts, and the baboons had shown only slight curiosity about the new developments.
Earlier on, there had been unexpected trouble in another area. A few of the new transfer males from Cripple Troop, accustomed to life around the army base that bordered Kekopey to the east, had carried their bad habits into Pumphouse with them. Now that they had no army barracks to raid, Chumley, Duncan and Higgins had their eyes-- and very soon their hands--en the small tin huts in which the cattle herders lived. The flimsy walls, insecure door and the gap between the hut and the ground provided ample opportunities for the "had boys," as we had dubbed the chief male raiders, to gain entry. Generally there was nothing much inside the huts, but the occasional bag of posbo (milked maize flour) made it worth a try.
It was these raids by the "bad boys" that brought about my first difficult decision and a major change in my orientation. Almost imperceptibly over the last three years. I had permitted myself and the other researchers greater leeway in intervening on behalf of the animals. The doomsday mentality that had been born when Kekopey was sold and that continued to haunt the project meant that an occasional monkey was rescued from a half-filled water tank where it might otherwise have drowned. Social interaction between baboons and observers was still forbidden, but it had become more difficult to know where to draw the line about helping an animal in distress. We intervened only rarely, and a "saved" animal became officially dead as far as our project records were concerned, as well as in any of the analyses where such an incident could make a difference in the conclusions. But all this was nothing compared to what I was thinking of doing with the "bad boys?" If I left the situation alone to run its course, I also risked their bad habits being picked up by the innocent members of Pumphouse The alternative was to sacrifice the few for the many.
This possibility would hare been unthinkable in the early days of my research, but now the baboons' future seemed to rely on maintaining good relations with the people of and around Kekopey. As if to reassure me that my difficult decision was the correct one, the day before we set up the traps to capture the three culprits, Duncan disappeared. The only news we could gather indicated that he had been killed in the process of raiding.
Chumley and Higgins were easily captured and released as far away from temptation as was possible. I should have been pleased, and of course I was happy that the troop now appeared to be safe. But the relief was mingled with a great sadness. The baboons had trusted me and I had betrayed them. The expressive eyes that met mine as Chumley sat alone in his cage for a whole day waiting until we had captured Higgins seemed to say the same thing. I knew this was only temporary captivity; I knew the males would soon be free and facing a better life than if I hadn't acted, but they didn't know it. I stood accused. Being their protector sometimes meant acting like their enemy. I little knew how often I would have to be both enemy and protector during the next four years.
Brad and Trouble
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Almost Human A Journey into the World of Baboons by Shirley C. Strum excerpts part 21
Baboons are smart creatures, but their response to raiding opportunities showed me a new dimension of their intelligence and for the first time made me wonder if the farmers or I could in fact outsmart them. Getting around the beleaguered chasers was seldom much of a problem. We increased the staff, and had them burl stones and shout, which made them more effective. Nonetheless, it still took us a while to catch on to some of the monkeys' tricks. Lou, one of the keenest raiders and a transfer from Cripple Troop, original home of the "bad boys"--Duncan, Chumley and Higgins--might look as if he had no interest in raiding as he moved in the approved direction with the rest of the troop BUT as soon as he reached the thicket, he would circle back, make a wide arc around the chaser--whose guard was now down, since the baboons were heading out of trouble instead of into it--and before anyone realized it was gorging himself on maize cobs.
Lou wasn't the only sneaky baboon. In general, the young males were the most avid raiders, and didn't mind foraging on their own or in small destructive groups. Sometimes the entire troop followed their lead, sometimes only a few friends and relatives. Even if the farmers were on guard, they often found their task difficult. The baboons were still afraid of them, and would run off when chased, particularly if there were dogs around. But they weren't afraid of women or children. Whenever the baboons left, they ran only a short distance away until the people went inside their huts or were so exhausted by all the chasing that they dropped their guard. The baboons would be in at once; and again and again. One could not help admiring their persistence and their maneuvering. I pitied the farmer who was alone when determined baboons arrived. While he would chase some out on one side, others would sneak in on another.
Neither I nor the research students could chase the baboons ourselves. The best we could do was get to the plot ahead of the monkeys and mobilize the resistance. It was painful to watch the baboons win time after time, but occasionally it was possible to get some distance from the events, so that the scene took on the hilarity of a Laurel and Hardy movie.
The people's side meant more than just chasing baboons away. Jonah's underlying conservation philosophy held that people had to be motivated to preserve animals out of self-interest.
When the Maasai at Ambeseli received a share in park revenues as well as other benefits, they changed from being destroyers of wildlife to becoming unofficial rangers, intercepting trouble and protecting the animals. The system had also worked for other areas in Kenya. What benefits to the farmers would outweigh the costs of the baboons on Kekopey? It was hard to know. Naturally people wanted and deserved compensation for crop damage caused by the monkeys, but this was a government matter and a government policy. All I could do was help locate the forms and speed up the bureaucratic process; I couldn't become directly involved If I found the money to compensate the farmers, I would be admitting I was responsible for the baboons; how could I then be able to claim that I had no responsibility, legal or otherwise? When I finally figured out the amounts involved, it did sound tempting. Less than $2,000 a year would cover all the damage; to be sure, it was money that I didn't have, but compared with other project costs, airfare to Kenya and running a car, it seemed like nothing. Even more appealing was the knowledge that the money would go directly to the farmers, who were hard pressed to absorb the cost of the Kekopey baboons. Brad and Trouble
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Almost Human A Journey into the World of Baboons by Shirley C. Strum excerpts part 22
Since the day we had released the males, native baboon troops and Wabaya had been visible daily to Pumphouse. Sometimes they even shared sleeping sites. The interactions were mostly tranquil; in fact, two of Wabaya's adolescent males actually transferred to Pumphouse. Life was really returning to normal; the frequent movement of young males between Pumphouse and Wabaya had been common at Gilgil when males were trying to make up their minds about transferring troops permanently. It now seemed that this had been broken only briefly by the translocation.
The social world of the monkeys remained almost unchanged; if anything, the bonds of family and friends were intensified and the troop became more socially cohesive, The same individuals could be found together, but now in an almost unbroken pattern. Families moved more as a unit during foraging and traveling, and rested together more consistently. The most touching of these family groups were the ones in which the mother had died, leaving behind only immature members in the matriline. These groups had always been especially solicitous of one another, but now, whenever there was a rest period, I would find them entwined in one another's arms or using each other as a pillow or backrest.
it was much hotter at Chololo than in Gilgil, and the troop rested in the shade at midday for extended periods. Rather than seeing groups of threes and fours sitting close, it was common to find clusters of nine or more baboons, all looking relaxed and at peace. Perhaps it was this heightened sociality that conveyed such a feeling of contentment to me.
I found a comfortable spot and lowered myself into a baboon position. Seen through baboon eyes, Chololo was wonderful. After the rains, the gullies, plains and kopjes would be filled with a wide variety of their foods, probably more than at Gilgil. There was plenty of water and enough sleeping sites, the locals, both baboon and otherwise, didn't seem too unfriendly and the monkeys had begun to make themselves at home. It was all too good to be true.
But was it? The short rains had come, and with them enough baboon food to allow the troops to be self-sufficient for a few months. We had stopped provisioning them about six weeks after the release, as soon as it seemed that they could find enough to eat. But the rains that brought such welcome relief from the drought were not as good on Chololo as they should have been, and by early January 1985 the lush grasslands, productive gullies and kopjes had dried up. Would the animals continue to find enough to eat on their own?
I seldom underestimate baboons, and during the translocation I had learned that they were even more adaptable and smart than I had expected. When we had originally surveyed Chololo and the surrounding area, I was disappointed that we would be so close to the Ndorobo Reserve, a tribally owned area of several hundred square miles inhabited by Samburu pastoralists and Ndorobo hunters-turned-pastoralists still living the life of their ancestors, wearing exotic garb, living in exotic settlements and having even more exotic customs. The place was a wasteland, an arid region of bare ground between thorny bushes and shrubs, and I wondered what the goats and cattle found to eat. There was no constant supply of water, the heat seemed more intense, and though the landscape had a stark beauty, I couldn't help thinking it was an area that produced more rock than anything else. Brad and Trouble
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Almost Human A Journey into the World of Baboons by Shirley C. Strum excerpts part 23
Communication
Baboons communicate by means of a series of gestures, postures, facial expressions and sounds Unlike human language, baboon sounds are not symbols referring to objects. For the most part, the sounds and other communications that baboons exchange express their emotions: I feel angry, I feel happy, I feel content, I am confused, I am ambivalent, I am not aggressive and so on. Some sounds may also contain a small amount of other information, as has been demonstrated in vervet monkey alarm calls and grunts. Some baboon sounds--grunts, for instance--may give information about the individual at whom they are directed: a dominant female, a stranger or a baby.
Like all monkey and ape communication, baboon communication is both graded and repetitive. Signals combine to form a series that reflects the intensity of the animal's emotion: I'm a little angry. I'm moderately angry, I'm very angry. Sounds, facial expressions, body postures and gestures are used simultaneously to emphasize a point or to add degrees of intensity to it.
It is difficult to imagine how simple statements of emotion done can communicate the complexity of baboon interactions, hut these signals are not used by themselves', they are produced in a particular social and environmental context, and it is this context that provides the actual meaning--meaning that can be as varied as the situation.
All animals need to communicate with one another. Solitary creatures who reproduce sexually need only to be able to communicate about mating. Creatures who care for their offspring need to be able to exchange information about themselves and their children. Animals who live in social groups, temporarily or permanently, need to be able to communicate on a much more sophisticated level. This is probably how communication evolved. As a result, signals were borrowed from one context--sexual behavior, for example--and used in another--parenting or social communication--with a shift in meaning to extend the dialogue. Primate researchers at the turn of the century failed to understand this sequence and assumed each signal had only one possible meaning. Their interpretations included many ideas that today we recognize as erroneous.
The drawings, shown in book, illustrate the visual range of baboon signals (which, of course, are also accompanied by a wide variety of equally important sounds). Each sequence portrays the same signal in different contexts Comparing contexts helps to convey the ways in which what is communicated can be both similar and different.
Presents
A sexually receptive female presents to a male, exposing her bottom for the male to inspect This is a communication about sexual intentions. If the time is right, a sexual present can a prelude to a copulation or even to the start of a consort relationship.
Presents also occurs outside sexual contexts. In Fig. 2, shown in book, a female presents to a male as a form of simple greeting. A male's higher social status requires that some statement be made if a female eaters the large personal space around him that he considers his own.
Fig. 3 , shown in book, is a variation of a female greeting to a male, but in this case the female is actually frightened of the male. Her greeting present is from a distance and her tail is held much higher, even bent toward her head--always a clear sign of fear.
Presents can be invitations to approach, as in Fig. 4, shown in book, where an adult female presents to an infant, inviting it to come close. Or a present can be a greeting asking permission to approach, as in Fig. 5, shown in book, where a juvenile female presents to a mother as a prelude to trying to fondle her infant. Brad and Trouble
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Almost Human A Journey into the World of Baboons by Shirley C. Strum excerpts part 24 Variations of Presenting
Mates sometimes great each other by actual presents of the female type-tail up, bottom directed to the other animal--but more frequently male greetings are mutual and incomplete as far as the tail-up position is concerned. In Fig. 6, shown in book, two males are side by side, tails only partly different in orientation; notice, however, that each male is facing and looking at the other male's bottom, as in a normal present. Other signals are also being exchanged: the males are grunting at each other, narrowing their eyes and smacking their lips together. The signals convey friendly intentions but also some nervousness.
Presents can be part of more complicated communication. In Fig.7, shown in book, a juvenile presents in a greeting gesture to an adult male while at the same time he is acting aggressively toward another, larger juvenile in the distance. This combination is often called a "protected threat," since the individual is counting on the help or at least the protection of the adult male, giving it the courage to threaten a feared or more dominant opponent.
Fig. 8, shown in book, illustrates a very different type of present--a present for grooming. Here a male is presenting the part of his body he wants to be groomed by the approaching female This is both an invitation to approach and a grooming request.
Embraces
Embraces are one type of greeting. Animals who are not related to one another or who do not associate frequently find embraces a useful way in which to convey friendly intentions. Embraces probably originated from handling infants as shown in Fig. 9, shown in book. The female--not the mother--fondles the young baby gently, bringing it close to her chest and face. Frontal embraces are an appropriate greeting between a female and an older infant (Fig 10 shown in book) and between an adult male and an infant (Fig.11, shown in book). Fig. 12, shown in book, shows two adult females embracing. Adult embraces are more often sideways than frontal. Although frontal embraces occur when individuals are also trying to reassure each other after some particularly upsetting incident. This type of behavior was noted during the translocation of Cripple Troop Among adults, the frontal embrace appears almost an infantile regression.
Aggression
Communicating aggressive intention is the most clearly graded of baboon signals. At its lowest intensity a simple lifting of the eyebrows reveals white eyelids, signaling that the sender is aware of what is going on and is not happy about it (Fig. 3, shown in book). In Fig. 14, shown in book, an adult male is intent on letting those around him know how he feels; he is much more upset. He has added an open-month threat to the eyelid signal, revealing impressive canines. His hair is also beginning to stand on end, making him seem even more formidable. As the threat heightens in intensity, more sounds and ground slapping will be added. Fig. 15, shown in book, shows a juvenile male equally aroused; the white eyelids are visible, the hair is standing on end and the mouth is wide open to reveal absent canines.. Baboon signals are ritualized. While the open-mouth threat was originally probably a way to display the force behind the bluff, its meaning is now less dependent upon actual flashing of impressive canines.
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Almost Human A Journey into the World of Baboons by Shirley C. Strum excerpts part 25 Aggressive signals have their counterpart in submissive ones. Sometimes presents and other forms of greeting are used to appease or to stop threats. At other times as in Fig. 16, shown in book, screams, fear-faces and crouching low demonstrate how upset an animal is. The female at the left, shown in book, lunging toward a cluster of youngsters, giving an eyelid threat and making aggressive sounds; she is about to slap at them. The juvenile directly opposite her is screaming with an open mouth and lurching backward. The infant in the background is watching fearfully, poised to move off and making a fear-face, its mouth pulled wide in what looks like a grin but which means the opposite. Accompanying the fear-face is a sound called a "geck" or "gecker" a series of short, staccato grunts related to fear. The infant in the foreground is crouching down and is about to try to hide behind a small rock.
Play
Play s accompanied by a special signal--the play-face. Many other aspects of behavior are different in play--for example, the gait is often looping and inefficient--but it is the play-face that conveys the important message: This is not serious, even so it may seem so. All behavior can become part of play, including what would otherwise be construed as aggression. In Fig 17, shown in book, two black infants are just beginning to experiment with social play and have not yet mastered the signals The six-month-old infant in Fig 18, shown in book, is playing with a much larger individual and exhibits a partial play-face. The two juveniles in Fig. 18, shown in book, both show a full play-face, but are also trying to bite each other on the mouth.
Ambivalence
Because emotional reactions art often complicated and confused, communication can show a great deal of ambivalence, evidenced either by alternating between types of signals--males often first exchange friendly greetings, then threats, then friendly greetings again--or by sending conflicting signals simultaneously, as shown in Fig. 20, shown in book. Here the female on the right has approached (communicating friendly intentions) the higher-ranking female and infant on the left, and is torn between attraction to the baby and fear of the mother. The fear-face is the same as that displayed by the juvenile in Fig. 16, shown in book, and appears similar to the open-month threat shown in Fig. 15, shown in book, but in a true fear-face the mouth is not opened as wide, the lips are more curled and the eyes are not closed in an eyelid threat.
Baboons use nonverbal communication. Humans share this nonverbal system as well, although the signals are not always identical. Even when we talk, we are also communicating through posture, gestures and facial expressions; as with baboons, our nonverbal scream conveys how we feel. Because we have two systems of communication, we can say one thing and mean another. The truth--whether we really like someone, whether we are really upset or not, whether we believe what we are saying--is most often found in the nonverbal messages. Brad and Trouble
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I think Monkeys are the greatest thing ever. Their whole personna is incredible, I am fascinated by their behaviour. I am a university student in England studying zoology. For my final year project I have decided to do my thesis on monkeys and apes and their sometimes human like quality. I am delighted to find this sight, I would appreciate it if anyone has any infomation or has the same love for apes to writeb back to me.

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