MONKEY BUSINESS

Scientists Perplexed by Monkeys Caught Kidnapping Babies From Another Species

Camera footage shot on an uninhabited island showed male capuchin monkeys carrying around abducted baby howler monkeys for no obvious reason.

A handful of male capuchin monkeys have been caught on camera abducting babies from another species, baffling the scientists who study them. Over a 15-month period, five male capuchins were seen carrying around 11 different baby howler monkeys in trap-camera footage captured on Jicarón Island, an uninhabited island off the coast of Panama. Female monkeys have been known to “adopt” babies from other species and practice caring for them, but the males had little interaction with the howlers, which clung to the males for several days while the capuchins walked around and used tools. They didn’t care for, play with the babies, or eat them, though eventually the baby howlers died because they didn’t have access to their mothers’ breast milk. The researchers don’t know how or why the capuchins went to the effort to kidnap the babies in the first place because their cameras weren’t rigged in the treetops where the howler monkeys lived. The scientists are currently exploring the theory that the capuchins, which have no natural predators on Jicarón Island, were just bored and looking for entertainment, which turned out to be destructive. In that case, the capuchin monkeys are “like a mirror” reflecting things that humans do that have no real purpose, but that nevertheless harm other species, one of the researchers told CNN.