Reaction to Snakes in Wild Moor Macaques (Macaca maura)

<p>Snake predation is considered an important evolutionary force for primates. Yet, veryfew studies have documented encounters between primates and snakes in the wild.Here, we provide a preliminary account of how wild moor macaques (Macaca maura)respond to seven species of real and model snakes. Snakes could be local anddangerous to the macaques (i.e., venomous or constricting), local and nondangerous,and novel and dangerous. Macaques reacted most strongly to constrictors (i.e., pythons),exploring them and producing alarm calls, and partially to vipers (both local andnovel), exploring them but producing no alarm calls. However, they did not react toother dangerous (i.e., king cobra) or nondangerous species. Our results suggest thatmoor macaques discriminate local dangerous snakes from nondangerous ones, and mayuse specific cues (e.g., triangular head shape) to generalize their previous experiencewith vipers to novel species.</p>