The social life of most of the babo species is dominated by females: they are the ones who tighten lasting ties and collaborate in the growth of puppies, while males are for them and show themselves only when there is a need to reproduce . A new study published on the American Journal of Biological Anthropologyhowever, tells a sensational exception to this rule: In the Santa’s babo, in fact, the bonds of friendship between males and females are lastingand not exclusively linked to reproductive needs – a unicum among the baboons.
The smaller baboons in the world. The baboons of Kinda (Papio Kindae) belong to that which until recently was considered a subspecies of the yellow father (Patio cynocephalus). In 2013 they were recognized as a species in its own right; They are the smallest baboons in the world, they live between Angola, a democratic republic of the Congo and Zambia, and have a little marked sexual dimorphism – in other words, males and females look very much and have about the same dimensions.
The University of Massachusetts Amherst team that conducted the study followed a population that lives in the Kasanka National Park, Zambia, for a period of nine years, documenting hundreds of interactions between males and females.
Make love, don’t make war. What they discovered is that males go in search of females even when they are not looking for a partner, and they are almost always the ones who start the interactions, which consist in groming and other gestures of affection. These ties have noticed the team, persist over the years and are not linked to the reproductive state of the female: they are real “friendships”, in short.
Who also have a benefit on the health of the group: The males of the baboons of Kinda, in fact, are much less aggressive of those of the other species of Santa Santa, and rarely begin struggles for dominance and access to females. On the contrary: social groups are always open to new arrivals, which are welcomed without too many problems (and above all without violence). Is there a connection between male-female friendships and this reduced aggression? It is possible, and further studies will confirm it.
