Monkeys kidnap babies in Panama: 'Never before seen in the animal kingdom'

Capuchin

By RTL Nieuws 46 minutes ago Modified : 45 minutes ago

RTL

Scientists have found evidence of what they describe as "monkey abductions" while reviewing video footage from a small Panamanian island. Capuchin monkeys were seen with at least 11 baby howler monkeys between 2022 and 2023. "We've never seen anything like this before in the animal kingdom."

"A very shocking finding," said Zoë Goldsborough, a behavioural ecologist at the Max Planck Institute for Animal Behaviour in Germany. Why the capuchins took the howler monkey babies is still under investigation, The Guardian reports.

Researchers know that capuchin monkeys live long, are smart, and learn new behaviors from each other. A group of capuchin monkeys in Panama have even learned to use tools to crack open nuts and seafood. This is the behavior that scientists wanted to study.

Monkeys appear to pay a surprising amount of attention to personal hygiene

To do this, they installed more than 80 cameras. But the images the researchers received showed the capuchin monkeys with young howler monkeys on their backs, while they were busy with the tools.

Suspicions

The camera footage did not show the alleged abduction of the young howler monkeys. But according to the scientists, it probably took place high in the trees, where howler monkeys spend most of their time.

In Mexico, researchers noticed last year that many howler monkeys were falling from trees. This was due to the heat in the country, as you can see in the video below:

In most cases, the baby howlers died, probably from starvation. Howler babies are normally carried by their mothers and breastfed. In the videos, it was the male capuchin monkeys that were carrying the baby howlers.

There would have been no signs of violence towards the babies, nor would they have been eaten.

Five men

So far, only one group of capuchin monkeys is known to have kidnapped babies, and they were five male monkeys.