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posted by janrinok on Friday November 25 2016, @03:33AM   Printer-friendly
from the same-the-world-over dept.

Female vervet monkeys manipulate males into fighting battles by lavishing attention on brave soldiers while giving noncombatants the cold shoulder, researchers said on Wednesday.

After a skirmish with a rival gang, usually over food, females would groom males that had fought hardest, while snapping at those that abstained.

When the next battle came along, both those singled out for attention and those aggressively shunned would participate more vigorously in combat, according to a study published in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B. [Paywalled, abstract only]

Female grooming and aggression "both appear to function as social incentives that effectively promote male participation in intergroup fights", a research team from Switzerland and South Africa reported.


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  • (Score: 2) by RamiK on Friday November 25 2016, @12:41PM

    by RamiK (1813) on Friday November 25 2016, @12:41PM (#432834)

    What sociological knowledge? It's monkeys.

    As for humans, violent death had to have been as common for males as death during child-labor was for women. Otherwise, monogamy wouldn't work. That leaves either hunting or warfare.

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  • (Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 25 2016, @04:43PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 25 2016, @04:43PM (#432893)

    Modern monkeys generally opt for welfare.