The Effect of Social Hierarchy on Behavior in Cercopithecus petaurista

The social group hierarchy of three captive C. petaurista specimens was monitored and determined by observing agnostic fights, aggression, and allogrooming incidents. This social group was monitored from May to August in 2017 for 60.5 observation hours total as a continuation of a previous study conducted in spring of 2017. The study took place at the Central Florida Zoo and Botanical Gardens. All observations were recorded on template sheets with the location of each individual noted on a 6x6 grid representing the enclosure. A new sheet was used for each 15-minute increment during observation periods. It was concluded that agnostic fight outcomes were influenced by social hierarchy, with more dominant individuals consistently winning encounters with less dominant individuals. It was also notable how the dominant male would step in to help settle agnostic fights, enforcing the hierarchy among less dominant individuals. Allogrooming also was influenced by hierarchy. Grooming incidents among the observed specimens followed the Seyfarth model, meaning that grooming tended to take place among individuals of adjacent rank