Rhesus monkeys, Macaca mulatta, have been used as the subjects of research more often than the members of any other species of non-human Primates. Compared with the abundant data on the anatomy, physiology, and psychological characteristics of these monkeys, relatively little is known about their social behavior in free-living populations. The primary objective of this study is to analyze the social behavior of rhesus monkeys. It is based on a two-year field study on Cay0 Santiago, Puerto Rico, a small island in the West Indies. This first report covers aspects of methods of research, group composition and its stability, repertoire of social behavior, sexual behavior, and agonistic behavior.I am indebted to many people for their assistance with various parts of this study. The possibility of studying the rhesus monkeys of Cay0 Santiago first was suggested to me by Dr. David McK. Rioch. Critical reading of a research protocol was given by Drs.

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We used morphometric techniques and isotope-labeled water to investigate the influence of abundant, accessible food and resultant low activity levels on body size and fatness in free-living adolescent and adult baboons as compared to animals in the same population that experienced more typical, wild-feeding conditions. Females that had access to abundant food from a nearby garbage dump averaged 16.7 kg body mass, 50% more than their wild-feeding counterparts in adjacent home ranges. Little of the difference was due to lean mass: the animals with an accessible abundance of food averaged 23.2% body fat in contrast to 1.9% for the wild-feeding animals. Significant differences between feeding conditions were found for all measured skinfolds and for upper arm circumference but not for linear measurements. Differences between feeding conditions were less for males than for females, perhaps reflecting persistent effects of nutritional conditions during the first eight years of life before dispersal from the group of birth. The difference in fatness between feeding conditions was similar to the difference between humans with frank obesity and those that are considered lean, but in both cases the percentages of body fat in the baboons were considerably less than those observed in humans. In levels of fatness, the relatively sedentary animals resembled their counterparts in group-housed captive conditions. o 1993 WiIey-Liss, Inc.

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At maturity, female baboons in the Amboseli National Park of Kenya generally attain a rank position among adults near to that of their mothers. However, the age of a female's mother and the difference in ages between sisters also influence the rank acquisition process. These latter demographic variables, which are sensitive to changes in resource availability, may account for the close association both within and among primate species of specific patterns of rank organization and specific environmental conditions.