Patterns of mating among male patas monkeys (<i>Erythrocebus patas</i>) in Kenya

Abstract

An habituated group of wild patas monkeys was observed in Kenya for 550 h in 1984. Observations were made primarily during an interval that, as previous studies at the same site had demonstrated, coincided with the annual mating and conception periods. Earlier field studies of patas at other sites had reported that heterosexual patas groups had only a single resident adult male and that mating was harem-polygynous. At the Kenya site, by contrast, as many as six males were simultaneously resident and mated in the group during the conception period. Males adopted a variety of tactics to gain access to receptive females, ranging from opportunistic mating to attempts at sequestration that resembled consort behavior in other cercopithecoids such as savanna baboons and rhesus macaques. Aggressive competition for access to females took place among the males, although the number of completed copulations per male did not bear a positive relation to agonistic dominance rank. For patas monkeys, harem polygyny is only one available option within an overall mating system that is best described as a form of promiscuous polygyny, especially during periods when conception is most likely.