Fun with Science Club®


			Female mandrills stick together, but the males live alone. Beth Tyler 05.14.01 Like monkeys and chimpanzees and humans, mandrills (Mandrillus sphinx) are primates. They are the most colorful primates, with bright red and blue and yellow markings. (The character Rafiki in the movie "The Lion King" was a mandrill.) In the mid-1990s, primatologist Kate Abernethy observed a group of over 600 mandrills traveling together in Central Africa. No primatologists had ever observed so large a group of nonhuman primates. Dr. Abernethy's unusual observation sparked interest among primatologists, including E. Jean Wickings and Lee J. T. White, who then began studying mandrills more closely. They discovered females and children travelling, eating, and playing together in tight knit social groups that can include over 1,000 mandrills. So where are the males? For a few months in the year, the males live with the females and children. To figure out what they did the rest of the time, primatologists put radio collars on the males so they could follow them. They discovered that, unlike most primates, male mandrills live very solitary lives for most of the year. Because of this new information, primatologists are asking new questions about mandrills, like "Why do females live in such large groups?" and "Why do males prefer to live alone?" With more observation, thinking, and comparisons with the lives of other wild primates, primatologists might discover the benefits males and females get from their different lifestyle choices.


			Angier, Natalie. 2000 May 23. In mandrill society, life is a girl thing. New York Times, F1.