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Wild capuchin monkeys readily learn skills from each other--but that social learning is driven home by the payoff of learning a useful new skill. It’s the first demonstration of “payoff bias” learning in a wild animal, and could inform whether and how animals can adapt to rapidly changing conditions; for example, due to climate change or reintroduction of species from captive breeding.
Capuchins are interesting because they have sophisticated social behaviors, and the kin relationships and early developmental histories of these monkeys are known.Image credit: Brendan Barrett/University of California, Davis
