Infant Behavior Development And Mother-infant Interaction In Snub-nosed Monkeys Rhinopithecus Roxellana In Shennongjia, China

Studies on behavior development of primate infant have important implications for explaining the behavior of adult individuals. The maternal behavior of primates is critical for offspring survival and female reproductive success, and also impacts infant development and adult relationships with other individuals. Thus, observations of mother-infant interactions are a subject of current interest. To document the infant behavior development and maternal behavior, from March 2013 to October 2014, focus animal sampling was used to observe 15 mother-infant dyads of Rhinopithecus roxellana in a provisioned group at Dalongtan in the Shennongjia National Nature Reserve. Relative distance between mother and infant, mother’s restriction to infant and rejection of maternal behavior were used as indicators of mother-infant interactions.(1) The results on infant behavior development showed that infants in provisioned group developed faster than infants from Qingling Mountain and in captivity. Infant monkeys increased their activity by age, along with decreasing of dependence on other individuals. At the age of 6 months, infants had ability to do most of behaviors that juvenile had, except some ritual aggressive-submissive behavior and reproductive behavior.(2) Infant Rhinopithecus roxellana have natal coat colored differently from adult color, the changes of natal coat color to juvenile color had partly correlation with infant behavior development.(3) The results on relative distance found that the time budget spent on ventral contact and infant age were negatively correlated with significance, whereas body contact and infant age did not have a significant correlation. The time of relative distance (< 1 m) between mother and infant was negatively correlated with infant age, and positively correlated at distances of 1-5 m,5-10 m and > 10 m. Mother’s restriction and infant age did not have a linear correlation while the mother’s rejection of maternal behavior was negatively correlated with infant age. The results also suggested that distance between mother and infant increased with the development of the infant, and mother reduced protection to her infant as it became more active and mobile. Maternal parity, sex of the infant, the infant birth date and social unit size had a minimal influence on mother-infant relationships of Sichuan snub-nosed monkeys. This could be because the study group was provisioned; therefore has less food competition, resulting in lower rates of intra-group aggression and milder relationship.