Integrative and Comparative Biology Advance Access originally published online on November 30, 2007
Integrative and Comparative Biology 2008 48(1):152; doi:10.1093/icb/icm100
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This article appears in the following Integrative and Comparitive Biology issue: Aeroecology: Probing and Modeling the Aerosphere–The Next Frontier [View the issue table of contents]
Book Review |
Wily Monkeys: Social Intelligence of Tibetan Macaques. Hideshi Ogawa (translated by Akie Yanagi).
Department of Psychology, University of Lincoln, Brayford Pool, Lincoln, LN6 7TS, UK
Correspondence: E-mail: bmajolo{at}lincoln.ac.uk
Wily Monkeys: Social Intelligence of Tibetan Macaques. Hideshi Ogawa (translated by Akie Yanagi).
Kyoto, Japan: Kyoto University Press and Trans Pacific Press, 2006. XII + 189 pp. ISBN-10: 1920901973 (hardback), £48.48 ($84.95).
This book is an English translation, by Akie Yanagi, of the book "Tachimawaru saru" ("Monkeys play their cards well"), originally written in Japanese by Dr Hideshi Ogawa and published in 1999. Data contained in this book are based on the research conducted by Dr Ogawa on the Tibetan macaques (Macaca thibetana) in the Anhui province, China, mainly between 1989 and 1993.
This book is composed of 10 chapters and has a mixed structure; scientific data on primate social behavior are integrated with anecdotal observations of the Tibetan macaques and with descriptions from the author's personal life while in China. In the first chapter, the author describes his field site and study animals. The second chapter contains an account of primate social behavior, including payoff matrices for the hawk/dove and prisoner's dilemma games. The following two chapters describe the social behavior of Tibetan macaques in greater detail, while in Chapter 5 the author discusses his life in China during the course of the study. In Chapters 6–9, the focus is again on macaque social behavior with a description of, respectively, the ontogeny of social behavior in males and females, formation of alliances among females, a case of infanticide in the study group, and huddling behavior. In the final chapter, the author gives a more general discussion of the implications of his study for an understanding of primate behavior, including sections on deception, theory of mind, and self-recognition.
Over the years, Japanese scientists have significantly contributed to the establishment and development of primatology as a proper scientific discipline. Many scientific books written by Japanese primatologists, however, have never been translated into English, thus remaining relatively not-accessible for non-Japanese speakers. Considering that those books often contain useful data and are excellent scientific works, the translation of Dr Ogawa's book by Kyoto University Press and Trans Pacific Press is noteworthy. This book is a good reading material, although some sentences have been awkwardly translated and there are some spelling mistakes (e.g., "macagues" in the foreword). The mixed structure of this book, however, makes it a bit difficult to describe and judge. If one is a nonprofessional with an interest in animal behavior and in primates in particular, this book may be fun as it provides a general account of primate social behavior, an idea of what it means to study animals in the field, and contains some nice pictures and drawings. The student of animal behavior, however, should not expect a comprehensive and detailed account of one species’ behavior. It cannot, for example, be compared to book by Davies (1992
) on dunnoks. Proper scientific data and analyses constitute only part of this book and the reference list is rather small. However, Dr Ogawa's book gives some useful insight into the behavior of Tibetan macaques and provides ideas to explore out in the field.
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Davies NB. Dunnock behaviour and social evolution. (1992) Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.
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