Title |
Special relationships instead of female dominance for redfronted lemurs, Eulemur fulvus rufus. |
Serial title |
American Journal of Primatology |
Summary |
Most lemurs yet studied in detail exhibit some mode of adult female social dominance over males. The known exception, a brown lemur subspecies known as rufous or redfronted lemurs (Eulemur fulvus rufus), forms multimale-multifemale social groups within which unambiguous dominance relations are not observed among adults. Resting groups of redfronted lemurs consistently include huddling adult male-female pairs whose males selectively scentmark and rub their heads in the scentmarks of their female huddling partners. Quantitative observations confirmed that some of these male-female pairs maintain special relationships satisfying all criteria originally developed in research on cercopithecine monkeys. Observations before, during, and after mating season, intergroup encounters, male transfers, and changes in male-female affiliations illuminated developmental and functional aspects of male-female partnerships. Each adult female in two semi-free-ranging study groups shared high rates of association, grooming, and agonistic support and low rates of agonistic interaction with one unrelated or distantly related adult male partner. |