Mother-infant relations and infant development in captive chimpanzees and orang-utans |
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Authors: | L Cheryl Miller Ronald D Nadler |
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Institution: | (1) Yerkes Regional Primate Research Center and Department of Sociology, Emory University, 30322 Atlanta, Georgia;(2) Present address: Unit of Perinatal Biology, California Primate Research Center, University of California, 95616 Davis, California |
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Abstract: | Four chimpanzee (Pan troglodytes)mother—infant dyads and four orangutan (Pongo pygmaeus)motherinfant dyads were studied for the first 11 months of the infants’ lives. For both species, ventroventral contact and
nipple contact decreased over time at a similar rate, but total contact decreased earlier in the orangutans and was 50% lower
than for the chimpanzees at the end of the study. Social play between the mothers and the infants did not differ in frequency
between the species, but orangutans played above the ground and chimpanzees on the ground. Solitary play differed in form
between the species and, like social play, reflected their differences in arboreal and terrestrial proclivities. In addition,
the orangutans engaged in solitary play considerably more frequently than the chimpanzees during the second half-year of life.
The developmental differences in mother-infant contact and solitary play of these apes are consistent with the differences
in their speciestypical social organization. The data may reflect, therefore, early development of species differences in
the social and relatively solitary natures of chimpanzees and orangutans, respectively.
An erratum to this article is available at . |
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Keywords: | chimpanzee orang-utan mother infant development |
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