RAIDING parties, subterfuge and warfare. Chimps use these tactics, humans are all too skilled in them, and now they have been observed for the first time in a non-ape – the relatively little-known spider monkey.
During a long-term study of the monkeys in Mexico, Filippo Aureli of Liverpool John Moores University, UK, and his colleagues came upon small groups of males travelling deep into the territory of neighbouring monkeys. Spider monkeys (Ateles geoffroyi) usually spend all their time in the trees, so the researchers were amazed to see these males creeping along silently in single file on the ground, looking…
