Some monkey business

Don?t read too much into this, but Leonard Rosenblum, professor of psychiatry, University of New York, has found that South Indian monkeys are more ?cultured? than their North Indian counterparts.

Don’t read too much into this, but Leonard Rosenblum, professor of psychiatry, University of New York, has found that South Indian monkeys are more ‘cultured’ than their North Indian counterparts. Scientific research on India’s simian population for the last 50 years has found southern monkeys to be more caring and less anti-social.

HT Image

Rosenblum, a primate expert, thinks that the reason for this North-South divide lies in the fact that South Indian monkeys are bred and brought up within groups, while in the North, male monkeys leave their groups after reaching adulthood and breed outside. In other words, because South Indian monkeys tend to be related to each other, they also behave in a more ‘civilised’ manner. North Indian monkeys, on the other hand, are aggressive — sexually as well as in general — and show a heightened tendency towards road rage. Oh, apologies, monkeys, whether in the north or the south of India, don’t have road rage.

Prof Rosenblum maintains that “almost every form of sexual and marital behaviour found in humans is noticed in monkeys”. He is also attending an international conference on (human) sexual behaviour in Hyderabad next year. But as we said at the beginning: don’t read too much into these findings on monkey behaviour.