Jan 13, 1999

MANDRILLS- Males

Buy button
Mandrills move in huge groups of females and infants. So where are all the males?
We're listening to the sounds of Mandrills-- colorful primates and close members of baboons which inhabit the rainforests of West Africa. This month, female Mandrills are clustered in large groups, giving birth to and caring for their young. And as for the males, well, stay tuned. I'm Jim Metzner, and this is the Pulse of the Planet, presented by the American Museum of Natural History.

"So we move into January, February and the young are being born. And when they come the females will spend much more time caring for those infants. They carry them under their chests when they're first born and hold them all the time. This time males are essentially absent. Maybe one or two big males will come into the troop and be tolerated but they're not really members at this point in the year. "

Kate Abernathy is a Research Fellow with the International Center for Medical Research in Gabon.

"When males are alone they're not having to compete for food with the more numerous juveniles and females. Females and juveniles are much smaller. They're a third to a quarter of the body size of the males. So they can get out to the ends of branches. They can eat fruit that the males don't have access to and they get there faster. So often they've taken something before the male can get there. When he's on his own he's got time to find the way to climb up, pick the fruits that he wants and eat them in peace. So they're feeding basically, and they spend a lot more time searching out particular foods. They'll spend maybe an hour dismantling a termite mound and eating insects or feeding in one particular tree. If we get a good fruit crop on a preferred tree like a mango, then they'll come back into that tree every day for three weeks."

Pulse of the Planet is presented by the American Museum of Natural History. Additional funding for this series has been provided by the National Science Foundation. I'm Jim Metzner.

ANIMALS,Primates

Scientist: Kate Abernathy