Overview
- A PLOS One paper published on August 26 reports that bearded capuchins in northeastern Brazil increased hunting of small vertebrates when fruit and other plant foods became scarce.
- The result rests on more than 5,000 hours of observation between 2006 and 2010 that recorded hundreds of vertebrate-eating events across two groups at Fazenda Boa Vista.
- Most prey were lizards and rodents and monkeys typically ate brains and internal organs first, showing a clear preference for fat- and nutrient-rich tissues.
- Hunting rates varied by age and sex with adult males hunting most often and targeting riskier prey like snakes, and a group that received supplemental food showed lower predation rates.
- The authors call for more long-term field studies and reanalysis of the fossil record to test whether small-prey exploitation could have been a stepping-stone in early hominin diets.