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Study Finds Bereaved Macaque Mothers Exhibit Brief Restlessness, Not Human-Like Grief

UCL researchers reveal macaque mothers respond to infant loss with short-term physical restlessness, challenging assumptions about grief across species.

Overview

  • The study, published in *Biology Letters* on April 16, 2025, observed 22 macaque mothers, 11 of whom had recently lost infants, at the Caribbean Primate Research Center in Puerto Rico.
  • Bereaved macaque mothers displayed increased physical restlessness and spent less time resting in the first two weeks after their infants' deaths, compared to non-bereaved mothers.
  • Researchers identified this restlessness as a 'protest' phase, akin to behaviors seen in primate mother-infant separation studies, but found no evidence of prolonged despair or grief-like behaviors typical in humans.
  • This marks the first systematic study of primate maternal responses to death, contributing to the growing field of evolutionary thanatology, which examines death and bereavement across species.
  • The findings challenge the assumption that grief behaviors are universal, emphasizing the need for further research into how non-human primates process loss.