Infanticide in Primates AND TINA FEY of course.

Heavy topic right? Infanticide? Well, as odd as it sounds I'm super interested in it. 
And then everyone is like : 

Anyway, in searching for a thesis for undergrad and my masters, I am leaning towards primate parenting and how that relates to homo sapien sapien. Think about it, tool use has been done and done again, language use in the PNW has been pretty much exhausted and in a world where you are living up to Jane Goodall and Roger Fouts as your two biggest hero's, you have to do something that is different. So, in my quest for something that was different and something that I could stand behind and work with for the next many moons of my life, I somehow ended up on parenting. If you haven't, you should watch the movie "Chimpanzee."

It's a documentary about an small chimp named Oscar, who's mother is killed after a skirmish with a nearby group of chimps and is adopted by an unlikely elder, the alpha of the group Freddy. This may sound like nothing special to most people, but in the chimp world this is a rarity. Males are typically never parents. They are in charge of defending their territory which is usually a 24hour job, which means that they don't really play or spend time with any of the youngsters in a group. If an infant is left as a orphan, normally another mother in the group will take on the infant as her own, or in some cases the small chimp will be left to fend for itself, which usually results in death. In this movie, Freddy takes Oscar under his wing, helping him eat, letting him share his nest at night and letting him ride on his back, which is truly a feat in alpha male chimps. I sincerely hope you watch it. I spend most of the movie sobbing because it was so beautiful. 
JUDGE ME I DARE YOU.

After seeing this, I dove headfirst into the primate parenting world. The way families work within primates, specifically chimps is so interesting. So used to having a mother and a father do equal parenting, I love watching infant chimps with just their mothers and siblings. The birthing process is also so interesting. The way a female chimp separates from a group, has the baby and comes back with a newborn, bright and shiny pink chimp for the group to meet is so ridiculously beautiful. Often times when there are older siblings involved, they want to practice their mothering abilities on the newborn by carrying it around and playing with it. Many mothers hate this, but sooner or later when the infant is big enough, and annoying enough, this form of babysitting is often appreciated. 

Infanticide, or the intentional killing of a newborn/young infant is seen a lot in gorilla communities and orangutan communities, and few cases have been recorded in chimps. In most cases, the female that has had the infant loses her place in the hierarchy when she gives birth. When you have a newborn infant to take care of, the alpha males are focusing on female chimps who have reached sexual maturity and who are cycling. (which you can usually tell by a swollen pink butt) In Gorillas mothers have been known to leave their young babies behind, if they realize they are losing their spot in the group. In In the Shadow of Man by Jane Goodall the alpha female was Flo, and even though she had many kids, she never lost her ranking in the group until many years later, so there are some exceptions to the rule.

Here is Flo, her recognizable features included her large ears and her bulbous nose, which was speculated to be from some sort of fungal infection. 

So, from the standpoint of keeping your spot in the ranking of your group, I can see why infanticide would be a good option. Losing ranking is a big deal in all primate communities. So my question is, why is it more common in Gorillas and orangutans? Is there something in the evolutionary line that leaves gorillas and orangutans more likely to commit infanticide? Are hierarchy systems less important to chimps, so they wouldn't use infanticide as an option?  Are some primates who are more aggressive and trouble makers of the group more likely to kill their infant? What do repeat offenders have in common with each other? What are the specific differences between infanticide and a bushmeat killing?

These are the things that keep me up at night people. The struggle is real. Although my ultimate goal is to open sanctuaries for orphaned infants, chimps that have been in cages their whole life and the like, parenting in primates is an area I would also like to study. It's hard to narrow down one thing to study when you love the whole so much. 

In other news: 

-planning a wedding is hard, help. 

- theatre at night + early morning work= becky needs a 4 hour nap mid-day. 

-all I want is sunshine, amarula and to be back at Mahale. (a national park in Tanzania where most Japanese primate researchers conduct their research)

Back to the sanctuary on monday, so look for a new post with some more interactions with me and the chimps soon!

HUG/LOVE (signing to computer)

-b