| dc.description.abstract | Innovative behavior is a new behavior performed by individuals, occurred in low frequencies and restricted to particular area. Innovative behavior may allow animals in coping new environment and exploit more resources. Innovation as product and process of learning behavior has been observed and documented in various numbers of animals, mainly birds and primates. Nearly a half of those records came from food-related behaviors including food extraction technique, novel food items, and food preparation. Many of those behaviors were recorded in anthropogenic disturbance habitat, where animals were challenged by rapidly changing environments. First, I observed long-tailed macaques (Macaca fascicularis) in Pengkereman hot-spring in the highland of Mt. Rinjani in Lombok Island in 2008-2009. They showed innovative behavior in utilizing hot-spring. Two individuals of longtailed macaques were observed in September 5, 2004 incidentally to soak their limbs into the hot spring water. On August 20-22, 2008, during three consecutive day surveys, 4, 5, and 6 out of 26 individuals’ macaques immersed their bodies into the hot-spring stream and pool, respectively. However, this behavior not performed by individuals of the two groups living in adjacent areas, Pelawangan Sembalun and Pos 3 Senaru Groups and two others group of Sebau hot spring 20 km eastern of Pengkereman were never observed to soak their bodies in the water. The behavior was driven by scarcity of natural food source while the artificial foods from human tourist available in the area of hot-spring. The behavior fixed in some individuals who learn the thermoregulation advantages of the hot spring bathing in their habitat in highland with low ambient temperatures. Second, I observed fish-eating behavior performed by long-tailed macaques in Pangandaran Recreation Park in 2010-2012. This behavior was firstly observed in Rengganis Group on November 2010, when three adult and a sub-adult females ate fishes obtained from unattended net. Recently the fish-eating behavior is performed only by individuals of Goa Parat and K12 groups of Pangandaran Recreational Park. The fish-eating behavior that performed by long-tailed macaques in Pangandaran might be newly established as the innovative behavior. After Asian economical crisis in 1998 long-tailed macaques in the Pangandaran is in condition of nutritional deterioration. This condition affectted number of individuals and groups of long-tailed macaques in the Recreation Park and also the feeding behavior of the macaques live in park. Decreasing amount of food from visitors drove the macaques to move their home range like Rengganis Group or exploit new source in their home range like Goa Parat Group. The development of fish-eating behavior by individuals of Goa Parat Group could be the response to the challenge posed by the changing situation of the habitat. Third, I investigated the characteristics of a particular food-snatching behavior in which one individual forced another’s mouth open and grabbed the food, as performed by free-ranging Japanese macaques (M. fuscata) in Choshikei Monkey Park on Shodoshima Island, western Japan. I conducted a survey in late June 2012 and observed one of two monkey troops, comprising 214 monkeys. I recorded the age classes and sexes of the individuals who performed the snatching behavior and were snatched from, and examined the effects of provisioned food distribution and quantity on the frequency of snatching trials and success. During the survey, I recorded 747 snatching trials, of which 609 were successful, all of which were performed by seven individuals: one adult male and six adult females. The snatching behavior occurred only during provisioning. The target animals were primarily juveniles (650 trials, 578 successful), while cases in which food was snatched from adult females (93 trials, 30 successful) and sub-adult females (4 trials, 1 success) were less frequent. Among the juveniles, small juveniles had food snatched more frequently than large juveniles. The higher frequency of snatching trials against juveniles was likely due to their subordinate nature. Neither the distribution nor quantity of the provisioned foods had significant effects on the number of snatching trials nor did the successes, while the time elapsed after provisioning have significant negative effects, attributed to a decrease in the number of wheat grains left within the mouth pouch of the potential target animals. | en |
