Crying baby monkeys irk everyone around
29 Jun 2009, 1249 Hrs

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Washington, June 29 A study on rhesus monkeys conducted by led by researchers at Roehampton University in London has shown that crying babies often get on everyone's nerves, sometimes leading to nasty consequences.

Stuart Semple, an anthropologist at the university, recently observed that dominant monkeys were not shy about showing anger by chasing, pushing, hitting, or biting a mother and her youngster that were not family.

He and his two colleagues observed this hostile behaviour in wild rhesus monkeys in Puerto Rico, reports Live Science.

They say that bystanders were about 35 times more likely to attack both mother and infant when the baby was crying than when it was hushed.

The researchers also observed that when dominant bystanders were nearby, mothers would acquiesce to their babies' demands about twice as often as when they were alone or in the company of close relatives, which were more forgiving of tantrums.

This is the first time that any study has shown that, much like humans, monkeys are aware of the social consequences of not only their own actions, but those of their babies, too.

A research article on this study has been published in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B. (ANI)

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