New research reveals that primates, including previously thought solitary Strepsirrhines, exhibit diverse social organizations, with research suggesting pair-living as the most common ancestral state, challenging earlier views and highlighting the complexity of primate social structures.forming groups. In contrast, lemurs and other Strepsirrhines, commonly known as “wet-nosed” primates, have traditionally been viewed as solitary.
More recent research, however, indicates that many nocturnal Strepsirrhines, which are more challenging to investigate, are not in fact solitary but live in pairs of males and females. But what does this mean for the social organization forms of the ancestors of all primates? And why do some species of monkey live in groups, while others are pair-living or solitary?Researchers at the Universities of Zurich and Strasbourg have now examined these questions.
More than half of the primate species recorded in the database exhibited more than one form of social organization. “The most common social organization were groups in which multiple females and multiple males lived together, for example, chimpanzees or macaques, followed by groups with only one male and multiple females – such as in gorillas or langurs,” says last author Adrian Jaeggi from the University of Zurich. “But one-quarter of all species lived in pairs.
To reconstruct the ancestral state of primates, the researchers relied on fossils, which showed that ancestral primates were relatively small-bodied and arboreal – factors that strongly correlate with pair-living. “Our model shows that the ancestral social organization of primates was variable and that pair-living was by far the most likely form,” says Martin. Only about 15 percent of our ancestors were solitary, he adds.
Reference: “Primate social organization evolved from a flexible pair-living ancestor” by Charlotte-Anaïs Olivier, Jordan S. Martin, Camille Pilisi, Paul Agnani, Cécile Kauffmann, Loren Hayes, Adrian V. Jaeggi and C. Schradin, 28 December 2023,SciTechDaily: Home of the best science and technology news since 1998. Keep up with the latest scitech news via email or social media.