The Thammasat University Libraries have newly acquired a book that attempts to understand how monkeys think. How Monkeys See the World: Inside the Mind of Another Species is by Dorothy L. Cheney and Robert M. Seyfarth. Between 1977 and 1989, the two primatologists conducted field studies of the behavior of vervet monkeys in a national park in Kenya, Africa. Vervets have drawn the attention of studies because they seem to suffer from some problems associated with human beings, including hypertension, anxiety, and alcohol dependency. Drs. Cheney and Seyfarth and associates studied eleven social groups of vervets, paying special attention to find out what the noises they make might mean to one another. They also tried to see how the vervets looked at each other, and whether they analyzed other monkeys’ relationships to individuals or the group. They spent a lot of time recording sounds made by the vervets. Among these were alarm calls made when the monkeys saw potential danger from hawks, leopards, and snakes. Since the calls all sound the same, it was interesting to observe that when a hawk was near, vervets hearing the alarm would look up, while if a leopard was near, the same sound would make them run up into trees to hide. If a snake was approaching, the sound would make them look around the ground, as if trying to find the intruder. Drs. Cheney and Seyfarth recorded the sounds and played them back repeatedly to the monkey groups, and all reacted in the correct way each time. When they recorded the screams of baby monkeys and played them back, mother vervets all recognized their children’s noise, but the other female monkeys as well seemed to realize that the noise as being made by the child of one of their fellow vervets. This suggests that the monkeys know more about each other and their groups than previous researchers have considered. Part of the challenge is for the monkeys to predict what others in the group may do, the authors suggest:

To do this well, they cannot rely on memorizing single interactions but must instead deal in abstractions…. A monkey who can compare social relationships is better able to predict the behavior of others than one who simply memorizes all the interactions he has observed.

Then there are questions of how much the vervets understand what other monkeys need and want, which remain unknown to some degree. Trying to figure out monkey psychology from noises, how they interpret events and remember things, whether they think they can convince others to do what they want, and other such complex questions, are ongoing issues for experts in the field. How much do monkeys understand about themselves and the world remains a question for further studies. For now, Drs. Cheney and Seyfarth suggest that monkeys do not worry about what, if anything, other monkeys might be thinking:

Monkeys seem to be experts at reading each other’s behavior. . . [but] we have little evidence that they [can] read each other’s minds.

The authors claim that there is no sign that monkeys feel what human beings define as compassion or empathy. If one of them does something extremely unusual, it is rarely copied, and they never become teachers in the sense that human beings define teaching or instructing. Instead, they like to fool each other. During one fight, a male vervet gave off the yell that would mean a leopard was approaching, even though no leopard was near. The other vervet he was fighting ran up a tree to hide, ending the fight. Then the deceptive monkey repeated the cries, making sure that his opponent would stay hidden in a tree. Compared to monkeys, chimpanzees help and inform each other much more. This may because there is more need to do so. Monkeys stay in groups all the time, so there is never anything new to tell, and if one of them knows something, everyone immediately knows it. So although monkeys have emotions and their cries have meaning, they are not what would be called self-conscious or self-aware. They are not concerned with how much they might know or not know.

Thailand and Monkeys

All Thais are familiar with the Monkey Festival held at the Pra Prang Sam Yot Buddhist temple in Lop Buri where crab-eating macaques are thanked for bringing good fortune to local businesses. They are served watermelon, grapes, peanuts, corn, cucumbers, cakes, boiled eggs, and other delicacies. While some residents of Lop Burio consider the monkeys a nuisance, others honor them as descendants of the Hindu god Hanuman.

When 2016 started, as the Year of the Fiery Monkey, according to the Chinese and Thai zodiac, The Nation’s astrologer pointed out:

Go deeper into the so-called Chinese Five Elements Horoscope and you find that the Monkey sign contains Metal and Water. Metal is related to gold and material success. Water is connected to wisdom and danger. The Monkey is a smart, naughty, wily and vigilant animal. Astrologers say that if you want to make sure the New Year offers more hope than the one ending today, then you need to outsmart The Monkey. 

There was debate over whether the Fire Monkey would improve the Thai stock markets, and related concerns.

Cultural impact

Elsewhere monkeys were an inspiration, as in the artwork of Sakarin Krue-On (born 1965 in Mae Hong Sorn, northwestern Thailand), who creates site-specific installations with traditional Thai influences. Ajarn Sakarin teaches at Silpakorn University. Last year in London, his installation 4 Monkeys in the House was included in a high-profile Thailand Eye exhibit of the Kingdom’s contemporary art. 4 Monkeys in The House, which had previously been displayed at the Bangkok Art and Culture Centre (BACC), shows some monkeys who live in Ajarn Sakarin’s home in Ratchaburi. When asked about what it was like to live with monkeys, who in the artwork are perched on a cabinet and worktable containing books on religion and the economy, the artist explained that he had to be very careful what he left lying around the house, especially food. Also, walking around the monkeys had to be done sensitively. Many websites about encountering monkeys in Thailand offer comparably wise advice, such as:

• Don’t make direct eye contact with monkeys (it might be viewed by alpha males as a challenge).
• Don’t cross the path between a mother and her infant.
• Don’t antagonize or tease the monkeys.
• Don’t feed the monkeys (Thais are guilty of doing this, not just foreigners).

Research progress

Others in the Kingdom deal with monkeys on a more scientific basis. As the American-born nature photographer Lawrence Bruce Kekule noted in a blog posting, Thailand’s primates are a compelling subject of study. Among those doing some of the most enlightening research is Professor Emeritus Dr. Warren Y. Brockelman of Mahidol University, who continues to coauthor work, based at the Ecology Laboratory, BIOTEC Central Research Unit, National Science and Technology Development Agency, Thailand.  Among Dr. Brockelman’s most recent publications are studies of how far gibbons travel to find food, depending on the size of their groups. He has also participated in a study of how successfully The Gibbon Rehabilitation Project (GRP) has reintroduced breeding families of white-handed gibbons to the wild in Khao Phra Thaew non-hunting area (KPT) on Phuket Island. Dr. Brockelman has also extensively studied gibbons in Khao Yai National Park.

Another outstanding primatologist in the Kingdom is Dr. Suchinda Malaivijitnond with the Primate Research Unit at the Department of Biology, Faculty of Science, Chulalongkorn University. Dr. Suchinda is a leading expert in the long-tailed (crab-eating) macaques. As her academic homepage explains:

There are two approaches of my research; reproductive physiology and field study of non-human primates. For the first one, our focus is now about the effects of phytoestrogens from endemic Thai plant Pueraria mirifica on reproductive organs, bone (osteoporosis) and brain (Alzheimer’s disease) tested in vitro and in laboratory animals (rodents and monkeys).

For the second one, we research on distribution, morphology, ecology, genetics, behavior and physiology of macaque monkeys (Macaca spp.) in Southeast Asian countries, and some other Asian countries such as China and India. We also first discovered the macaque tool users at Laemson National Park, Thailand and in the vicinity of Andaman seacoast and Mergui Archipelago. Based on the vast knowledge on non-human primates gained both from the laboratory and field study, I am now establishing the National Primate Research Center of Thailand.

(All images courtesy of Wikimedia Commons).