Primate Social Groups

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Primates are extremely social creatures and there is varied diversity in their social organizations – some that have yet to be discovered – which is in large part determined by their adaptation to their environment. These organizations have been broken up into several categories, including dispersed polygyny, bonded pairs, polyandrous clusters, female clusters, and the one male unit, which I will discuss in detail later. In addition to their gregarious social groups, some primates, including Koko, Kanzi, and Chantek have learned to communicate with humans. Dispersed polygyny is common among the nocturnal bushbabies and pottos. These types of primates stealthily hunt for insects, and doing so in groups would be far too difficult. That’s why the males of this group are solitary. The females will normally stay close to their offspring, and may sleep in groups of other females during the day but will go disperse afterwards. Males hold larger territories that overlap the smaller territories held by individual females and possibly their…show more content…
In a desperate effort to communicate with humans, the Bonobo chimpanzee, Kanzi, after losing his mother, began to point at symbols on a keyboard to ask for different things. Eventually Kanzi was able to associate these symbols with the spoken word. He didn’t necessarily have to be taught by being shown where to point or be rewarded with food. Kanzi was able to learn and associate different symbols with different words and meanings just so he could communicate with his human keepers. In one experiment, Kanzi’s keeping sat in a room with him and told him, without pointing to symbols, to do things that were impractical, such as putting pine needles in the refrigerator and pouring Perrier water into a jar of jelly. He did these things just by listening to the spoken request, proving that he understood what was being asked of him in
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