Care-taking behavior by Japanese monkey mothers

本研究在自由放养组和大群日本猕猴（Macaca fuscata）中对幼崽从出生到第二年年底的母亲行为进行了描述。特别是，本研究旨在描述母亲在休息、喂养和旅行等不同情况下的行为差异。无论是自由放养的群体还是聚居的群体，妈妈们在休息的时候比喂食的时候花更多的时间和孩子在一起。另一方面，妈妈们在喂食的时候比休息的时候更倾向于对孩子表现出攻击性。此外，当母亲与其他群体成员一起在森林中旅行时，她们总是倾向于携带自己的后代。这些结果表明，日本猴妈妈可能会根据自己的行为改变对幼崽的态度。为了从进化的角度理解母代照顾能力，我们不仅比较了日本猴母代照顾正常幼崽的行为，还比较了猕猴母代和原猴母代照顾先天畸形幼崽的行为。我们可以说母性情感系统从原猿到猿是连续的。

The present study was conducted to describe maternal behaviors toward the infants from the birth to the end of the second year in a free-ranging group and in a large colony group of Japanese monkeys (Macaca fuscata). In particular, the present study aimed to describe the differences in maternal behaviors according to situations in which the mother spent her time such as resting, feeding and traveling. Irrespective of a free-ranging group or a colony group, mothers tended to spend more time with their offspring when they took a rest than when they fed. On the other hand, the mothers tended to behave aggressively toward their offspring more frequently when they fed than when they rest. Moreover, while mothers traveled in the forest with other group members, they always tended to carry their offspring. These results indicate that Japanese monkey mothers are likely to change their attitude toward their young offspring according to what they do.Maternal behavior of Japanese monkey mothers who take care of normal infants was also compared with not only that of mothers who take care of congenitally malformed infants but also that of macaque mothers and prosimian mothers in order to understand maternal care-taking ability evolutionally. We can say that there is the continuum from prosimians to simians for maternal affectional system.