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A primatologist has found signs of a canine-primate relationship similar to humanity's domestication of wolves:
In the alpine grasslands of eastern Africa, Ethiopian wolves and gelada monkeys are giving peace a chance. The geladas – a type of baboon – tolerate wolves wandering right through the middle of their herds, while the wolves ignore potential meals of baby geladas in favour of rodents, which they can catch more easily when the monkeys are present. The unusual pact echoes the way dogs began to be domesticated by humans, and was spotted by primatologist Vivek Venkataraman, at Dartmouth College in New Hampshire, during fieldwork at Guassa plateau in the highlands of north-central Ethiopia.
Even though the wolves occasionally prey on young sheep and goats, which are as big as young geladas, they do not normally attack the monkeys – and the geladas seem to know that, because they do not run away from the wolves. "You can have a wolf and a gelada within a metre or two of each other and virtually ignoring each other for up to 2 hours at a time," says Venkataraman. In contrast, the geladas flee immediately to cliffs for safety when they spot feral dogs, which approach aggressively and often prey on them.
When walking through a herd – which comprises many bands of monkeys grazing together in groups of 600 to 700 individuals – the wolves seem to take care to behave in a non-threatening way. They move slowly and calmly as they forage for rodents and avoid the zigzag running they use elsewhere, Venkataraman observed. This suggested that they were deliberately associating with the geladas. Since the wolves usually entered gelada groups during the middle of the day, when rodents are most active, he wondered whether the geladas made it easier for the wolves to catch the rodents – their primary prey. Venkataraman and his colleagues followed individual wolves for 17 days, recording each attempted capture of a rodent, and whether it worked. The wolves succeeded in 67 per cent of attempts when within a gelada herd, but only 25 per cent of the time when on their own.
Original Submission
(Score: 3, Informative) by EvilSS on Wednesday June 10 2015, @06:08PM
It did, in a blurb at the very bottom:
However, the geladas don't seem to get anything from the relationship, since the wolves are unlikely to deter other predators such as leopards or feral dogs, he says. Without a reciprocal benefit, Sillero doubts that the relationship could progress further down the road to domestication.
(Score: 2) by scruffybeard on Wednesday June 10 2015, @06:41PM
Good catch, I didn't notice that box at the bottom. Given that, it seems that the dogs have sort-of domesticated the primates in this case. Essentially using them to stir up the rodents, in much the same way as a hunter might use a dog to flush birds out of tall grass.
(Score: 2) by EvilSS on Thursday June 11 2015, @02:08AM
I'm sure most dog owners would attest to this being the way it worked with early wolves and humans as well. Most dogs do a good job training their owners.