Introduction
Vervet Monkeys are Old World Monkeys who are native to Africa. They are a medium sized monkey with long limbs and tail. Their face is small and round and their body is long. The face, hands and feet are black and their fur color varies but is usually a combination of grey, brown and white color. Vervets are found throughout Africa from Senegal to Sudan and down to South Africa (see the image below right). They live in social groups called troops. Troops usually consist of a large group of females, who are usually closely related, a few adult males, and the babies. Male Vervets are usually slightly larger than females and are easy to identify because they have characteristic blue scrotum and red penis. Once male vervets reach adolescence they leave the troop they were born in to find a new troop. Males usually live in several troops throughout their lives whereas females typically only live in one. In each troop there is a dominance hierarchy and an alpha male and an alpha female have access to the best resources. Females caring for young usually get avid help from juvenile females and other family members. Vervets have adapted to live in many habitats including savannah, open woodland, and forest edges. They are often live near rivers or streams. Their natural predators are Leopards, Snakes, Eagles, and Hyenas. Their diet consists of fruit, insects, seeds, buds, roots, grasses, crustaceans, bird's eggs, and other small vertebrates such as lizards.
Communication
Vervet monkeys have a complex communication system. Many of their communications and behaviors are very complex and even though I have separated the section of communication and behavior they are not actually separate and are in fact closely intertwined. One type of communication is to warn others of their troop that danger is near. They have different calls for different types of danger. This helps each monkey in the troop to know how to better respond to the danger. Vervets have different alarms for eagles, snakes, and leopards. Alarm calling is an altruistic act that could cause harm to the alarm caller by making the predator aware of it's location and help the receivers of the call (other troop members) by giving them a warning. This happens in the troop because the troop members are closely related to each other and share many of the same genes and they want these genes protected so that they can be passed on to the next generation. For example when a female vervet protects her offspring, she is protecting her fitness because this baby vervet shares 50% of her genes. When they alarm call they are protecting their family members who share their genes and are therefore also protecting their indirect fitness. Indirect fitness is the individual's genes that are passed on by another family member, that shares some of the same genes, and not directly from themselves. For example one vervet female may have two sisters, she shares some of the same genes with these sisters and when they survive and produce more offspring they are helping her indirectly increase her fitness. Inclusive fitness is the combination of these two types of fitness; an individual's total fitness.
Monkeys also communicate with their troop members much the same way we humans communicate with each other. They have different relationships with different monkeys just as we do. Some monkeys just can't seem to get along while others seem to be best friends. Because of this wide variety of relationships they can have with each other there is a wide variety of communication that goes on. When they come across a fellow monkey they like or are related to they often make a soft guttural sound, which I have come to think of as "hey there friend". Vervets love their babies and everyone wants a chance to hold one, the whole troop works together to raise them. When monkeys hold their babies they make a fast lip-smacking sound. I think of this as a way to comfort the baby because often the lip-smacking occurs when the baby gets frightened or when someone new comes along to hold it. This is an anthropomorphism that I have attributed to the monkeys because I do not know for sure that this is the reason that the vervets make this sound, it just parallels the reason a human mother would do this to her baby. Vervets like most other monkeys display a lot of agonistic behavior, this is any behavior basically regarding confrontation, such as eyebrowing, hitting, and fleeing. When monkeys come across another monkey they find displeasing they often first give them an "eyebrow" warning. This is a facial expression that the monkey uses to basically warn the other monkey usually to back off of food or some other type of resource. If this does not do the trick fights can break out. Most fights are not terribly long or bad because the cost of a fight is very high for the monkeys because of their sharp teeth. But some fights can be brutal and even deadly. Grooming is another type of communication that I will discuss further in the behavior section that follows.
Monkeys also communicate with their troop members much the same way we humans communicate with each other. They have different relationships with different monkeys just as we do. Some monkeys just can't seem to get along while others seem to be best friends. Because of this wide variety of relationships they can have with each other there is a wide variety of communication that goes on. When they come across a fellow monkey they like or are related to they often make a soft guttural sound, which I have come to think of as "hey there friend". Vervets love their babies and everyone wants a chance to hold one, the whole troop works together to raise them. When monkeys hold their babies they make a fast lip-smacking sound. I think of this as a way to comfort the baby because often the lip-smacking occurs when the baby gets frightened or when someone new comes along to hold it. This is an anthropomorphism that I have attributed to the monkeys because I do not know for sure that this is the reason that the vervets make this sound, it just parallels the reason a human mother would do this to her baby. Vervets like most other monkeys display a lot of agonistic behavior, this is any behavior basically regarding confrontation, such as eyebrowing, hitting, and fleeing. When monkeys come across another monkey they find displeasing they often first give them an "eyebrow" warning. This is a facial expression that the monkey uses to basically warn the other monkey usually to back off of food or some other type of resource. If this does not do the trick fights can break out. Most fights are not terribly long or bad because the cost of a fight is very high for the monkeys because of their sharp teeth. But some fights can be brutal and even deadly. Grooming is another type of communication that I will discuss further in the behavior section that follows.
Behavior
Vervet monkeys have complex social relationships. I personally got to experience vervet behavior and got to watch and learn many of their behaviors towards each other. Where I observed the monkeys was not in the wild but it was very close. It was in the monkeys original habitat (Africa savannah) with native plants and other wild animals near. The only difference was that the monkeys were in a very large fenced in area and there were human volunteers who were often more near and frequent than normal. The monkey foundation was started because vervet monkeys are often viewed as pests to humans and are often killed or injured and the foundation wants to help them and help educate humans about them. Almost all of the monkeys that now live at the foundation were orphaned, injured, or ex-pets(humanized) when they arrived at the foundation. Because of this I saw many natural behaviors but I also some very unnatural vervet monkey behavior.
It was very interesting to see how behaviors differed in the vervet monkeys that were humanized and the ones that were wild. There was one monkey named Frances who we were working on integrating in to a troop that had been an ex pet. She had only lived with humans her whole life and essentially didn't know how to act like a monkey. When ever she was frightened she would sit down and put her feet over her head and cover her face. This is NOT a natural vervet monkey behavior. When she lived with humans she was habitualized to them, meaning that she had been around them since she was very young and learned to NOT respond to them in fear, surprise, curiosity, etc. like a normal monkey would have. So when she came to the vervet monkey foundation and found out that she was a monkey and had to live with other monkeys having never seen one in her life, you can see how this could be quite shocking. She now had to learn to be habitualized to her own species. This is not a natural process that monkeys go through and she had to learn to be aware and habitualized to other monkeys. Fortunately just a short while after I left Frances had learned how to interact with other vervets and was accepted into a troop of her very own.
Fortunately most of the humanized ex-pets quickly learned from their peers how to behave accordingly and I didn't observe many of these strange unnatural behaviors. Many of the behaviors I observed were natural vervet monkey behaviors. Because they live in social groups they have a social structure. This social structure is called a dominace hierarchy. As I said in the introduction each troop has an alpha male and an alpha female. There are then the higher ranked monkeys just below these and then the lower ranked monkeys. When a female has a female baby this baby inherits her rank and it most likely will not change throughout that monkeys lifetime. If a female has a male baby this male will leave once he has reached adolescense and he will fight for his rank in a new troop. The higher ranked members of the troop have first access to resources such as food and the lower ranked monkeys esentially must wait thier turn according to rank or they will be punished by the higher ranked monkeys.
Monkeys groom each other not only to clean off dead skin and bugs but as a way of communicating to each other. Often times a lower ranked monkey will groom the alpha female or another higher ranked female to basically to kind of suck up to them so that they won't have confrontation. In these instances the alpha or higher ranked monkey will walk over to a lower ranked monkey and do a type of "grooming pose" that lets the other monkey know that it wants to be groomed. If the other monkey refuses this is taken note of by the higher ranked monkey and seen as a type of insubordinace that the lower rank monkey may be punished for later. Grooming can also just be a way for monkeys to bond and strengthen their relationships. Monkeys are often times seen hugging one another as well which I see as a way for them to show affection or to practice how to handle babies. Babies ride around on their mothers stomach, so when they are born they must be able to quickly learn to cling fast because the mothers must be able to climb and jump around in the trees in case a predator arrives. This is shown is a picture at the bottom of this page
The term monkeying around is one i'm sure you've heard before. This term applies to monkeys when they are playing. They are quite rambunctious creatures and get quite loud and excited when playing. They run around on the ground, climb around on trees, and do all sorts of crazy jumps and flips. This may be a way of practicing defending from predators or it could be just for the enjoyment of the animal ,I can only speculate, but either way they are quite entertaining to watch and it is one of the many reasons I have fallen in love with this species.
It was very interesting to see how behaviors differed in the vervet monkeys that were humanized and the ones that were wild. There was one monkey named Frances who we were working on integrating in to a troop that had been an ex pet. She had only lived with humans her whole life and essentially didn't know how to act like a monkey. When ever she was frightened she would sit down and put her feet over her head and cover her face. This is NOT a natural vervet monkey behavior. When she lived with humans she was habitualized to them, meaning that she had been around them since she was very young and learned to NOT respond to them in fear, surprise, curiosity, etc. like a normal monkey would have. So when she came to the vervet monkey foundation and found out that she was a monkey and had to live with other monkeys having never seen one in her life, you can see how this could be quite shocking. She now had to learn to be habitualized to her own species. This is not a natural process that monkeys go through and she had to learn to be aware and habitualized to other monkeys. Fortunately just a short while after I left Frances had learned how to interact with other vervets and was accepted into a troop of her very own.
Fortunately most of the humanized ex-pets quickly learned from their peers how to behave accordingly and I didn't observe many of these strange unnatural behaviors. Many of the behaviors I observed were natural vervet monkey behaviors. Because they live in social groups they have a social structure. This social structure is called a dominace hierarchy. As I said in the introduction each troop has an alpha male and an alpha female. There are then the higher ranked monkeys just below these and then the lower ranked monkeys. When a female has a female baby this baby inherits her rank and it most likely will not change throughout that monkeys lifetime. If a female has a male baby this male will leave once he has reached adolescense and he will fight for his rank in a new troop. The higher ranked members of the troop have first access to resources such as food and the lower ranked monkeys esentially must wait thier turn according to rank or they will be punished by the higher ranked monkeys.
Monkeys groom each other not only to clean off dead skin and bugs but as a way of communicating to each other. Often times a lower ranked monkey will groom the alpha female or another higher ranked female to basically to kind of suck up to them so that they won't have confrontation. In these instances the alpha or higher ranked monkey will walk over to a lower ranked monkey and do a type of "grooming pose" that lets the other monkey know that it wants to be groomed. If the other monkey refuses this is taken note of by the higher ranked monkey and seen as a type of insubordinace that the lower rank monkey may be punished for later. Grooming can also just be a way for monkeys to bond and strengthen their relationships. Monkeys are often times seen hugging one another as well which I see as a way for them to show affection or to practice how to handle babies. Babies ride around on their mothers stomach, so when they are born they must be able to quickly learn to cling fast because the mothers must be able to climb and jump around in the trees in case a predator arrives. This is shown is a picture at the bottom of this page
The term monkeying around is one i'm sure you've heard before. This term applies to monkeys when they are playing. They are quite rambunctious creatures and get quite loud and excited when playing. They run around on the ground, climb around on trees, and do all sorts of crazy jumps and flips. This may be a way of practicing defending from predators or it could be just for the enjoyment of the animal ,I can only speculate, but either way they are quite entertaining to watch and it is one of the many reasons I have fallen in love with this species.
References
Arkive:
http://www.arkive.org/vervet/chlorocebus-pygerythrus/image-G60762.html
Vervet Monkey Foundation:
http://www.vervet.za.org/vervets/facts.asp
NOTE: Much of this information comes from my personal experience and observations. I am by no means an expert on animal behavior or vervet monkeys but have presented this information correctly to the best of my knowledge and understanding. To better explain some of the behaviors I have attributed anthropomorphisms to the monkeys, these may not necessarily be how the monkey actually feels, I just thought it would help to explain. I hope you have enjoyed my webpage!
http://www.arkive.org/vervet/chlorocebus-pygerythrus/image-G60762.html
Vervet Monkey Foundation:
http://www.vervet.za.org/vervets/facts.asp
NOTE: Much of this information comes from my personal experience and observations. I am by no means an expert on animal behavior or vervet monkeys but have presented this information correctly to the best of my knowledge and understanding. To better explain some of the behaviors I have attributed anthropomorphisms to the monkeys, these may not necessarily be how the monkey actually feels, I just thought it would help to explain. I hope you have enjoyed my webpage!