Affiliative and agonistic behaviour in group of pig-tail macaques (Macaca nemestrina) at Prague ZOO

This study gives detailed describtion and analyses of affiliative and agonistic behavi-our in a captive group of pig-tail macaques (macaca nemestrina) at Prague Zoo. Ethological observation methods were focal animal sampling and ad libitum sampling, data were collec- ted from October to December 2009, the total time of observation was 130 hours. Data were evaluated with MatMan 1.1 and Statistics 6.0 and 9.0. There were three objectives of this work: (1) to describe the behavioral ecology of macaque species on the bases of research literature, (2) to observe and analyze affiliative and agonistic behavior of pig-tail macaques at Prague Zoo, (3) to study dependence of gro-oming upon the time of the day and social position of the individual. We tested seventeen hypotheses which can be divided into four categories. At first we studied the hierarchy in the group. Then we investigated the behavior in dependence upon the sex of the individual and subsequently upon the position in the hierarchy. At last we dealt with details of grooming. Tests confirm the existence of a linear hierarchy based on agonistic interactions. The results show that the movement in run depends on the sex of the individual. We can see a significant dependence of affiliative and agonistic behavior on the sex of the individual. We assumed a..