| Social behavior It is
seen that in the WHG hardly 15% of the total
awakening time is spent in social behavior
activities. The maximum in the form of grooming
is seen to dominate in the mother and infant,
following by that between adult male and female
and finally between adult pairs and sub-adult and
juvenile.
The newly born
infant always clings to the mother s belly and
feeds on her milk for up to 6 months after which
weaning starts.
The playing of infants with other
group members signals the weaning phase. However,
the mature infant, which spends time feeding and
playing with other group members, always shares
the night bed with its mother till another baby
is born.
Self grooming and self manipulation
is very common. These usually take place after
heavy feeding bouts and in the roosting trees
before sleep overpowers them.
The other intra-group relationships
are in the form of play between juveniles and
infants, sub-adults and juveniles and sub-adults
and adults. This is either mutual contact or
mutual non-contact and occasionally avoidance.
The young ones of
the group spend the maximum time of their total
social behavior in play.
In adults, the playful behavior is
more common during the sexual cycle.
Grooming is one of the major
activities of social behavior, with each grooming
bout lasting from few seconds to 90 minutes,
which forms nearly 15% of the total activity
period (Alfred and Sati, 1986) and may occur
between members of the group. Self grooming is
common while during the sexual cycle, the adult
male groom the genital portion of the female.
|