Monkey Day: Here’s when it is celebrated

Anthropology professors and field primatologists have documented the daily life of hundreds of large-brained capuchin monkeys in Guanacaste, Costa Rica.

They have found that female capuchin monkeys who are better integrated into social networks with other adult females tend to survive longer.

include giving and receiving grooming, foraging nearby and helping each other in conflicts by fighting or making aggressive sounds and facial expressions.

White-faced Capuchin monkeys engage in socially learned human-like rituals to test the quality of their friendships.

are more closely related to humans, the white-faced capuchin monkey has highly sophisticated social structures that influence behavior and are passed to others.

adult female capuchins who are better integrated into social networks with other adult females survive longer.

in the study included giving and receiving grooming, foraging nearby, and taking part in coalitionary conflicts -- intervening to help one another in conflicts by fighting, chasing, or making aggressive sounds and facial expressions.

Evidence also suggests that females who were more socially integrated into their overall group survived longer.

The teams of the researchers also observed white-faced capuchin monkeys engaging in socially learned human-like rituals like inserting a finger into the mouth, eye, nostril or ear of a social partner etc.