It’s not just human children that like to play, but gibbons too! As part of our blog series for Year of the Gibbon 2015, Carolyn Thompson, OuTrop’s Primate Scientist, explores play behaviour and why it’s so important for gibbons and other primates.
Our wonderful gibbons are often seen interacting closely with each other. Besides grooming other members of their family, they are also seen wrestling, chasing, slapping and biting each other in a playful manner. These play bouts are often witnessed between the parents and their offspring, as well as between siblings. But, play bouts have also been documented between groups when the families’ home ranges overlap.
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| Gibbons will often play alone or with each other. Photo by Andrew Walmsley/OuTrop. |
Play behaviour is important for social and mental development. Play behaviour allows animals to prepare for unexpected events, and this is essential for our wild southern Bornean gibbon infants who need to learn to adapt to changes in their surrounding environment.
Besides playing alone or with each other, primates also like to play with objects. Earlier this month I was lucky enough to witness the adult female from Group C play with a bird’s nest!
Coklat, who was hidden by foliage in the trees, suddenly came down the tree holding what appeared to be a light coloured object made of entangled twine. On closer inspection I realised she was holding a bird’s nest! There appeared to be no eggs or feathers inside (but, she could have sneakily done something with these when I could not see her). Coklat chewed part of the nest without ingesting it before excitedly ripping it apart within 15 seconds using both hands. She proceeded to drop it and swung off into an adjacent tree. The nest got caught in some branches 10 metres above my head so, I was unable to retrieve it.
To make matters worse, I was not taking data and did not have my camera to document this rare event! But, it still makes a very egg-citing blog post!
Find out more about Year of the Gibbon here.
