- Taxonomic differences:
- Subfam. Colobinae— leaf-eating monkeys (no C1/P3 shear)
- Subfam. Cercopithecinae— omnivorous monkeys (with C1/P3 shear)
- Tribe Cercopithecini (more arboreal, smaller groups, less dimorphic, defense by scattering)
- Tribe Papionini (more terrestrial, larger groups, strongly dimorphic, group defense)
- Important ecological factors:
- Food distribution
- Food dispersed (like grass), not defendable: lower predation risk, less female cooperation
- Food clumped (like fruit trees), defendable: higher predation risk, more female cooperation
- Female bonding generally leads to more philopatry (less group-switching)
- Predation risk
- Visibility in habitat
- Diurnality
- Territoriality: defined as defense of a fixed territory
often functions in spacing or conflict avoidance; rare in primates
- Social groupings more important than spacing apart; depend on recognizing and remembering individuals
- Population density and spacing— varies with food abundance
- Day range
- Home range. Some examples:
- Red colobus (Pilicolobus) density from 20 to 260 per km2 in different habitats;
home range varies from 5 to 114 hectares
- Guenons (Cercopithecus) home range varies from 4 hectares to 335 hectares
- Patas monkey (Erythrocebus patas) home range varies up to 5000 hectares
- Time budget in African Colobinae:
- 30-60% of time spent resting
- 20-40% " " feeding
- 4-25% " " on the move
- 3-15% " " interacting socially
- Group size: varies greatly. Examples:
- Colobus usually 3-15 individuals, but >300 at one site (in Rwanda)
- Mandrillus:
- M. leucocephalus (drill), Cameroon: 23-93
- M. sphinx (mandrill), Cameroon: 52
- M. sphinx (mandrill), Gabon: 600-850
- Cercopithecus (guenons):
- 4-8 individuals in some habitats
- ~ 20 indivuduals in most habitats
- ~ 50 individuals in very favorable habitats
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