Megan Petersdorf
PhD candidate, New York University, USA
Kinda baboons appear to have more in common with modern humans.
Baboons are infamously aggressive, but not all of the Papio species exhibit this behaviour. Megan Petersdorf studies a baboon that uses friendliness as a tactic to get ahead in life.
F riendships between male and female baboons are widespread among the six baboon species, but in the kinda baboon these friendships are male- driven and last for a long time.
Megan Petersdorf, a primatology PhD candidate from New York University, has spent the past 10 years studying these large primates across Africa. Her current research is focused on a species that shows a gentler side – the aptly named kinda baboon, which she studies in Zambia at the Kasanka Baboon project (KBP).
“In all of my fieldwork, I have never seen a male kinda baboon show aggression towards a female,” says Petersdorf. “This is in stark comparison to what you see in other baboons.”
Unlike other baboon species, male kinda baboons rarely fight with the opposite sex. “Instead, they appear to gain reproductive opportunities by being nice to females,” she explains.
Interestingly, this friendliness is sustained: “In kinda baboons, males maintain good relationships with females throughout the year, not just when they want to mate.”
Petersdorf is finding out how such male behaviour has inf luenced their mating system. She has observed that kinda baboons have smaller degrees of sexual dimorphism – meaning less investment in physical fighting – and has noticed more investment in sperm competition (exhibited by larger testes size).
“If being the alpha male does not help you achieve mating success, then males may not compete for this position, and use other tactics,” she says.
Long-term data from KBP also suggests a difference in male dominance rank acquisition: “When a new male enters the troop, he does not fight over the alpha position. Instead, he joins the dominance hierarchy at the bottom and rises in rank over time.”
The mating system of other baboon species differs because it is inf luenced by an alpha male position that males compete for. There is also more sexual dimorphism (males are larger than females and have longer canines).
According to Petersdorf, kinda baboons appear to have more in common with modern humans than other baboon species, such as unique male-female relationships.
Petersdorf says, “Comprehending how evolution has led to these differences may help us to understand how similar conditions played a role in the human lineage.”
To study mating systems among baboons, Petersdorf spends long periods of time observing and documenting their behaviour while living in a tent in the African wilderness. “Someone once told me I would never make it in fieldwork because I was too feminine,” she says. “Yet here I am.” Niki Rust
FIND OUT MORE
Read about Megan's paper, The reproductive ecology of the little-known kinda baboon, at: meganpetersdorf.com