Among baboons, females tend to form the strongest bonds with each other. Adult males live apart from them, except when mating.
The species of Kinda baboons are different.
A new study led by Anna Weyher, founder of the Kasanka Baboon Project and a recent doctoral graduate from the University of Massachusetts Amherst, sheds new light on the social behaviors of Kinda baboons (Papio kindae), revealing a remarkably “affiliative” relationship between males and females.
“Kinda males are initiating these relationships,” Weyher explained. “They’re spending more time maintaining them, they’re grooming females in all reproductive states,” meaning, taking care of females over time.
In most baboon species, males reach sexual maturity and they leave the group they’re born into, joining another group Weyher explained — and they contend for top rank.
“During that time they have tons of access to females (for reproduction), but they’re using a lot of aggression; they’re committing infanticide. They’re fighting with other males,” Weyher said.
It’s a very stressful mating strategy, Weyher said.
Among the reasons researchers say Kindas differ socially is their size. They’re smaller than other baboon species, Weyher said, and males and females are almost the same size.
Another theory is what researchers call “sperm competition,” less apparent in the male Kinda.
“If you control for body size, Kinda males have the biggest testicles,” Weyher said, adding that the Kinda’s sperm may be “stronger” and maybe biologically that allows them to spend energy developing relationships with females.
When Harry met Sally?
“In some ways it’s not surprising that, behaviorally, Kindas are so different because, anatomically, they look a lot different than other baboons,” said Jason Kamilar, professor of anthropology at UMass Amherst. He co-authored the study with Weyher.
“Kindas are …least sexually dimorphic,” Kamilar said, “so the difference in body size between males and females is the smallest — making them the best baboon species [for us] to understand humans.”
Last week, producers from public radio’s Science Friday spoke with Weyher, and teased out her Kinda research along the lines of the well-known movie, “When Harry Met Sally” — can male and female baboons really be just friends?
Long friendships do happen between Kindas—but that could also be a benefit during mating season.
The Kasanka Baboon Project
Early in Weyher’s research in rural Zambia, she founded the Kasanka Baboon Project.
The organization became a way for her to address concerns about wildlife conservation and “education, and female empowerment in her beloved, adopted community,” according to the KBP website, and long-term research into the Kinda baboon will continue.
Weyher’s study, conducted in Zambia’s Kasanka National Park, began in 2010. The findings are published in the American Journal of Biological Anthropology.
This story was originally published by NEPM. It was shared as part of the New England News Collaborative.
