Olivier and Chiquito at the river.
Olivier spent two hours with us today, inspecting the facilities and accompanying us to the river with the monkeys. He said that they're thriving! Our mutual goal is to find a relatively young female that can provide company for Chiquito until Lolita is old enough to join them.
"Although males from the same [wild] community are rarely if ever reported as being aggressive toward each other...the captive literature and unpublished data collected from 32 zoos (N. Davis, C. Schaffner and S. Wehnelt, unpublished data) reveals that it is somewhat unusual for captive spider monkey groups to have more than one adult male. For example, Eisenberg and Kuehn (1966) indicated that repeated attempts to introduce more than one adult male into an established group of A. geoffroyi inevitably led to such severe aggression that the authors concluded it could not be done.
In addition, in cases where there are more than one adult male or adult and maturing males housed in zoo-based groups a disproportionate amount of severe and all of the lethal aggression is done by and directed to males (N. Davis, C. Schaffner and S. Wehnelt, unpublished data).
The prevalence of male aggression in captive groups might readily be explained away by the fact that wild spider monkeys are philopatric and attempts to form groups with unrelated or unfamiliar males in aptivity could create problems that are not present in wild groups. However, two recent reports from the field muddy the waters even more." Spider Monkeys; Behavior, Ecology and Evolution of the Genus Ateles, ed. Christina J. Campbell, 2008.
Lolita was more inquisitive than she has been, and reached out and grabbed Chiquito's fur several times when he was sitting on me (which he ignored). In the past he's been the one to touch her.
"Although males from the same [wild] community are rarely if ever reported as being aggressive toward each other...the captive literature and unpublished data collected from 32 zoos (N. Davis, C. Schaffner and S. Wehnelt, unpublished data) reveals that it is somewhat unusual for captive spider monkey groups to have more than one adult male. For example, Eisenberg and Kuehn (1966) indicated that repeated attempts to introduce more than one adult male into an established group of A. geoffroyi inevitably led to such severe aggression that the authors concluded it could not be done.
In addition, in cases where there are more than one adult male or adult and maturing males housed in zoo-based groups a disproportionate amount of severe and all of the lethal aggression is done by and directed to males (N. Davis, C. Schaffner and S. Wehnelt, unpublished data).
The prevalence of male aggression in captive groups might readily be explained away by the fact that wild spider monkeys are philopatric and attempts to form groups with unrelated or unfamiliar males in aptivity could create problems that are not present in wild groups. However, two recent reports from the field muddy the waters even more." Spider Monkeys; Behavior, Ecology and Evolution of the Genus Ateles, ed. Christina J. Campbell, 2008.
Lolita was more inquisitive than she has been, and reached out and grabbed Chiquito's fur several times when he was sitting on me (which he ignored). In the past he's been the one to touch her.
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