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Brutal Reason Some primates are born with strange colors


First thing What you might notice about Delacour’s langur is its coloration. It has a jet-black body, limbs, and head, with a rough white rump sandwiched in the middle. (These monkeys—Trachypithecus delacouri if you want to be technical — it literally looks like Oreos.) But that’s just the adult view. The kids are a different story: They’re orange.

This is their distinct “innate coat”, which fades away after a few months. Babies from dozens of other primates also have fur that is a different color from that of adults. “One of the big questions is always why — why do they have separate coats?” asked Ted Stankowich, an evolutionary ecologist and director of the Mammal Laboratory at California State University in Long Beach.

Zoologists have come up with a lot of ideas, depending on the species. Maybe it’s an adaptation to the environment. Or a tried-and-true ploy to get attention from nearby adults. Now, write in American Journal of Biological AnthropologyStankowich’s team thinks they’ve figured it out, and the answer is a bit gruesome: strange coats can protect children from infection.

Among primates, new mothers care for their young in tight social groups, or militaries. For example, langurs live in groups of 20 to 50 animals with several (often related) females, their young, and one male. Every two or three years, an invading male from another army can overthrow the dominant male and take over. These hybrids want to mate with females, and they bring new genes with them. But if they come while a female is nursing another male’s offspring, they can bring trouble. “Adult males that come and take over an army will kill the young to get the mothers back into heat sooner,” says Stankowich.

The team analyzed coat, behavioral and biological data of infants and adults for 286 primate species, and they found a strong correlation between species with distinct coats for for infants and the emergence of insecticides. The team’s hypothesis is that conspicuous hair color is a form of indirect protection: Babies with different coats receive more care from their mothers. When babies are given more care and nourishment, they grow faster. That means they are vulnerable for less time. “Infanticide can happen at any time,” Stankowich said. “And the shorter the period during which these babies are vulnerable and small, the better for the mothers.”

Amanda Spriggs, a primate colorist at SUNY Albany who was not involved in the study, calls the hypothesis “intriguing.” She notes that the danger of this adaptation is that it makes a different type of attack easier. “It’s like putting a target in your kid’s back for a predator,” says. From an evolutionary standpoint, a species will only sustain such a risky adaptation if it mitigates an even greater threat. “Having a special coat for newborns has to be a huge physical reward,” she says. And what could be a greater evolutionary reward than protecting the next generation?

That said, there There are many good reasons why a child may look different from its parents. Example: camouflage. Some gazelles have babies with jacket with spots or stripes; when adults let them forage, that pattern makes them hide in the bushes. Seals have cubs with snow white coat blends in with the ice, while other seal species that leave their young in caves tend to have darker pups.



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