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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: 5, Interesting) by frojack on Wednesday June 10 2015, @08:29PM
Check out the fangs on these guys:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:BabouinGeladaAuReveil.JPG [wikipedia.org]
Then check the relative size of the wolves in the image at first link.
It seems far more likely to me, that the wolves are walking on eggshells in the midst of 600+ sized herds of monkeys easily able to tear them to bits. Wolves view monkeys as dangerous, when provoked. So unless they happen to catch a small one alone, far from the adults they know they can't win, because one scream from a baby brings 100 sets of those fangs down upon the whole wolf pack.
So wolves never attack. Too dangerous. The monkeys learn that the wolves never compete with the monkeys for food. They simply deplete rats and mice which do compete for food. To me this suggest not cooperation but simple ignoring each other, like horses pretty much ignore chickens.
I don't think you have to invent a social enlightenment story out of it.
Wolves just go where the food is.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 1) by penguinoid on Thursday June 11 2015, @01:39AM
Yup, some of the wolves learned not to attack the monkeys the hard way.
Only once has Venkataraman seen a wolf seize a young gelada, and other monkeys quickly attacked it and forced it to drop the infant, then drove the offending wolf away and prevented it from returning later.
RIP Slashdot. Killed by greedy bastards.