BABYSITTING 

 and DAYCARE 

 among the 

 BARBARY 

 MACAQUES 



by Meredith F. Small 

 photos by the author 



Three juvenile males rejecting another 



24 



SCREECH! Screech! Screech! After many years of 

 observing monkeys I knew this was the cry of a 

 young macaque in trouble. Experience also told me 

 that the infant would soon be rescued from peril by its 

 ever-vigilant mother. Sure enough, as I stood staring 

 up at the infant caught in the oak canopy, an animal 

 galloped to the baby's aid. The adult shinnied up the 

 tree, flipped the wailing infant onto its back, and scam- 

 pered to the ground. Resting at the bottom of the tree, 

 the older monkey cuddled the baby and chattered soft- 

 ly to it. In a matter of minutes the infant went from 

 nervous shriek to placid calm. 



It was my first day of watching this colony of Barbary 

 macaques and 1 needed my binoculars for a closer look 

 at the mother to note her identity. As the pair came 

 into focus, I realized that the scenario was not what I 

 expected. The teeth-chattering adult was a male, and 

 it seemed that the mother was nowhere in sight. 1 was 

 witnessing day-care in the forest, where males, females 

 other than the mother, and even little juvenile mon- 

 keys are responsible babysitters. 



Research has shown that primates, including hu- 

 mans, have a fascination with infants. This infatuation 

 is usually restrained by mothers, who keep infants close 

 to the belly until the infants are more independent and 



can escape unwanted attention. Among some pri- 

 mates, such as Indian langurs, this attraction to infants 

 gets out of hand; infants are passed rapidly among adult 

 females from the first day of birth. "Aunt"-infant inter- 

 actions are usually explained as necessary to trigger and 

 refine mothering techniques. Barbary macaques are of 

 special interest because, as I discovered, infants are the 

 focus for just about every member of the troop, not just 

 females who might gain mothering skills. 



Barbary infants, unlike other species of macaque, 

 grow up in a "community atmosphere," where they are 

 quickly assimilated into the social network of monkey 

 life. Tossed around like footballs and played with like 

 new stuffed toys, these infants are the social glue that 

 connects adult relationships. 



Macaques are evolutionarily successful; they have 

 adapted to tropical forests in Southeast Asia, arid re- 

 gions in India and Nepal, and snowy mountains of 

 Japan. They are the most widespread primate genus 

 other than humans, probably because they have an 

 omnivorous diet; they eat just about anything. Barbary 

 macaques, the subject of my investigation, are native 



Meredith F. Small teaches anthropology at Cornell University, where 

 her research focuses on primate behavior. 



