Dhananjaya, Tejeshwar and Das, Sayantan and Harpalani, Monica and Huffman, Michael A. and Singh, Mewa (2022) Can urbanization accentuate hand use in the foraging activities of primates? American Journal of Biological Anthropology, 178 (4). pp. 667-677. ISSN 2692-7691
Full text not available from this repository. (Request a copy)Abstract
Objectives How a species uses its anatomical manipulators is determined by its anatomy, physiology, and ecology. While ecology explains interspecific variation in gripping, grasping, and manipulating objects, its role in intraspecific variation in mouth- and hand-use by animals is less explored. Primates are distinguished by their prehensile capabilities and manual dexterity. In context to the adaptive pressures of urbanization on primates, we examined if mouth and hand use differed across the forest-urban gradient in food retrieval and processing under experimental and naturalistic conditions in cercopithecids, a family comprising several urbanizing primates. Materials and Methods We recorded the acquisition and processing of peanuts under experimental conditions in three groups of bonnet macaques (BM, Macaca radiata) differing in their dietary dependence on packaged food items along a rural-urban gradient. To affirm the pattern obtained in the experiment, we coded food acquisition of three cercopithecid species in similar habitats from video sources. Results Urban macaques had a disproportionately higher hand use to acquire and process peanuts while rural macaques had higher mouth use. Based on analyses of videos, urban populations of BM, Japanese macaque (M. fuscata) and vervet monkey (Chlorocebus pygerythrus) showed a bias toward hand use during food acquisition. Discussion The adaptive pressures of urbanization, like the manual constraints of extracting packaged foods and perhaps, the need for visual-haptic exploration of novel objects seem to accentuate hand use in synanthropic groups of primates. Additional research should ascertain similar patterns in other primates and determine specific aspects of urbanization that modulate the observed trend.
| Item Type: | Article |
|---|---|
| Uncontrolled Keywords: | hand use; mouth use; packaged foods; synanthropic species; urbanization |
| Subjects: | D Physical Science > Physics |
| Divisions: | Department of > Institution of Excellence |
| Depositing User: | C Swapna Library Assistant |
| Date Deposited: | 06 Oct 2023 07:41 |
| Last Modified: | 06 Oct 2023 07:41 |
| URI: | http://eprints.uni-mysore.ac.in/id/eprint/17759 |
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