Primate Social Systems and Culture Flashcards

Flashcards covering primate social systems, cultural traditions, and tool use.

What is a solitary primate social system?

A system where a species lives/travels alone, except for mothers and unweaned offspring. Males occupy large ranges overlapping female ranges and mate with multiple females.

What is a single-male, single-female primate social system?

A system where an adult male and female live together with their offspring, sharing a mutual pair bond, defending a territory, and mating monogamously. Males help with offspring.

What is a single-male, multi-female primate social system?

A system where one adult male lives with multiple females and their offspring. There is a female dominance hierarchy, and resident males may commit infanticide.

What is a multi-male, multi-female primate social system?

A system where multiple adult females and males live together with offspring. There is a female/male dominance hierarchy, and males compete for access to females.

What is fission-fusion primate social system?

A fluid social system where group size and composition change depending on food availability; groups split (fission) when resources are scarce and merge (fusion) when resources are plentiful.

What is a multi-male, single-female primate social system?

A system where two or more males live with a single breeding female, her offspring, and non-breeding females. Reproductive suppression occurs, limiting reproduction for other females.

What is culture in the context of primates?

The transmission of behavior from one generation to the next by social learning; variation in the behavioral learning of primates is called cultural tradition.

Give some examples of chimpanzee cultural traditions.

Population-specific prey preferences, hunting strategies, tool-use techniques, and social behaviors, such as fishing for termites, extracting honey, and using spears to hunt galagos.

What is the importance of immigration in cultural transmission?

Immigrants bring cultural traditions to their new community, which others learn from; immigrants can also learn and observe cultural traditions from their new community.

What is an example of cultural traditions of Macaques?

Japanese macaques washing muddy sweet potatoes in a stream and macaques learning to go in hot springs to reduce stress and keep warm.

What is 'Termite Fishing'?

A chimp will procure a piece of grass and use it as a tool to ‘fish’ out termites.

What is a definition of a 'tool'?

An object that is not part of the animal that can be lifted and used to change a situation.

List some tool use cases with Chimpanzees?

Cracking nuts with sticks, gather rainwater with folder leaves and use sharp sticks to hunt bush babies.