[HN Gopher] Macaques at Japan reserve get first alpha female in ...
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Macaques at Japan reserve get first alpha female in 70-year history
Author : NotSwift
Score : 131 points
Date : 2021-08-03 10:33 UTC (2 days ago)
(HTM) web link (www.theguardian.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.theguardian.com)
| lkrubner wrote:
| We should expect to see this throughout the world, as the climate
| crisis intensifies. We should expect to see this especially in
| intelligent or social species. Game theory predicts that, from
| the point of view of parents, when the population is expanding it
| is better to have sons and when the population is shrinking it is
| better to have daughters. A son might have a lot of children when
| times are good and zero children when times are bad. A daughter
| is likely to always have some children, and therefore is a safer
| bet when things are bad. This shifts the incentives for parents.
| When population is falling, parents have an incentive to care
| less about their sons, and to invest more resources in their
| daughters.
|
| That much is known.
|
| We can also speculate that if daughters are now receiving more
| investment as children, they are better positioned to go higher
| in society as they become adults. A general shift in political
| power, throughout social species, should be expected, as the
| climate crisis threatens more and more species with extinction.
|
| This might extent to even those species in zoos, as their
| population usually is not allowed to expand.
| astrojams wrote:
| Wow this is fascinating. I'd love to read more about this, do
| you have any links to articles discussing this behavior?
| Blikkentrekker wrote:
| This like most evolutionary psychology seems like one of those
| "anything goes" explanations that simply seems like a plausible
| explanation, but can just as easily be offered to explain
| falsehoods.
|
| The problem with it is that one can invent a scenario that
| never happened and asked for an explanation and similar such
| plausible explanations can be proffered for it, but there's
| really no way to actually verify and test them.
|
| It can just as easily be explained with " _It is a simple fluke
| that will repeat itself in another 70 years._ ".
| whatshisface wrote:
| That makes no sense to me because for every child a daughter
| has, someone's son had a child. It has to balance out unless
| someone invents monkey mitosis.
| sizzle wrote:
| In nature, males can impregnate many females and do not have
| to necessarily be around to rear their many offspring. So it
| is advantageous to have many females that can procreate with
| less males to increase the population size at a higher rate
| than more males and less females to mate with.
| IanClarke wrote:
| _A few_ man have _a lot of_ offspring, which is how it makes
| sense again.
| rainbowzootsuit wrote:
| Indications from genetic research are that humans may have
| about twice as many female ancestors as male according to
| some theory about discrepancy in the "time to most recent
| common ancestor" for mitochondrial DNA (extrapolating for
| female ancestors) and the nonrecombining portion of the Y
| chromosome (extrapolating for male ancestors).
|
| I think the presence discrepancy is reasonably well accepted.
|
| https://academic.oup.com/mbe/article/21/11/2047/1147770
| [deleted]
| sandworm101 wrote:
| >> It has to balance out
|
| It doesn't. In a species with 50/50 split between male and
| female, the number of males is almost irrelevant to
| population growth. Take rabbits. If you kill at birth 90% of
| the males, the population growth won't slow as the limit is
| the number of babies per-female. The 10% of males that
| survive simply father more kids via more females. Males can
| do that. Females cannot. Going one step further, killing all
| those males increases the resources available to the females.
| Ironically, culling those males can cause a population to
| grow faster than if they lived.
| thaumasiotes wrote:
| > In a species with 50/50 split between male and female,
| the number of males is almost irrelevant to population
| growth.
|
| The split between male and female isn't relevant to this.
| Unless the males are needed to raise the children, the
| number of males is irrelevant to population growth.
|
| But the average benefit of having a son remains equal to
| the average benefit of having a daughter; that's _why_ the
| ratio stays at 50 /50.
| IanClarke wrote:
| The guys weren't cutting it any more. They were not delivering
| on the expectations of the group (growing it). Life became too
| harsh and stressful for them, they are not even mating any
| more, since the offspring couldn't be fed, so they stop
| breading with the females. Still: Everyone is disappointed and
| the males know it, too... affecting their behavior which gets
| less dominant/aggressive. The females are now in focus, since
| they procreated more reliably (on average, the old alpha, that
| had a lot of offspring, is likely dead by now). The shift to a
| female leader means the population is in trouble and in
| decline. A crisis manager(female) gets installed.
|
| Note that typically older males mate with (much) younger
| females: It's no coincidence, that she is that much younger
| than her male counter parts: She is angry about her mating
| partners that they have stopped mating (with her). Older
| females have offspring. The old alpha male, which is dead, has
| a lot of offspring. The external life conditions just became
| too harsh, this is not a happy setup. There are 2 strategies,
| but one is to react on external circumstances (stop
| procreating), instead of blindly going ahead and having to stem
| the bill later (starving babies). Apes are intelligent enough
| for the first, but there are furious women now (including
| "her").
| tjpnz wrote:
| I've been there a few times but always referred to it as "Monkey
| Mountain", never knew it was called Takasakiyama. If you're in
| Beppu it's well worth a visit.
|
| https://www.japan-guide.com/e/e4703.html
|
| Bear in mind that these are wild animals and that there are days
| where the park's closed due to no monkeys.
| thaumasiotes wrote:
| Well, you had to figure it was named _something_ in Japanese,
| right?
|
| Gao Qi Shan appears to mean "tall, mountainous mountain".
| Monkeys aren't mentioned, though the name of the monkey
| preserve, Gao Qi Shan Zi Ran Dong Wu Yuan "Mount Takasaki
| Nature Zoo", does mention animals.
| greyfox wrote:
| i wonder what implications this has on mating? will she find a
| mate? Presumably the male would need to dominate her in order to
| procreate, that does not appear to be the case, currently.
|
| Will she attempt to assume the male role in the mating process?
|
| Lots of questions here around this issue.
| ipspam wrote:
| Yes. Many. I think the conservators need to leave a strap on
| with the food, just in case.
| TheAdamAndChe wrote:
| It would also be interesting to see if the mating strategies
| and behaviors of the males change too.
|
| Let's hope they are thoroughly monitored and studied.
| Slow_Hand wrote:
| Hasn't the concept of alphas been discredited/debunked by the
| originator of the concept? Or is that strictly for wolves?
| Tiktaalik wrote:
| Maybe "alpha" wolves have been debunked, but there are lots of
| research that points to matriarchal animal clan organization in
| other species.
|
| Resident Orcas would be a notable example.
| IanClarke wrote:
| The originator of the (generic) concept "alpha" (please let us
| know who this is / who you think this is) has discontinued the
| term "alpha" (quite an alpha-decision from him, I would say)
| due to new insights discovered when observing wolves. Alpha
| does not exist for wolves (presumably)... and in general. To
| extend just further (why not) the concept gets fully
| discontinued, due to public pressure, because everything is
| equal anyway.
| Slow_Hand wrote:
| You had me until your last sentence. What do you mean that
| the term is being discontinued due to public pressure? Isn't
| it natural for concepts to go away if they're found to be
| inaccurate (ex: phlogiston)? I also don't understand
| "everything is equal anyway". Could you elaborate?
|
| Since you mention the term in relationship to the public, I
| actually think that "alpha" as a term to describe someone who
| is dominant has been doing just fine as a societal meme,
| despite it being used less among biologists/whomever. In this
| sense it doesn't seem to be going away at all.
| IntrepidWorm wrote:
| The concept of alpha, beta, etc in wolves was observed in
| captivity, and then incorrectly extrapolated to describe wild
| populations. Now science is finding that if you put a social
| species in a captive environment with unfamiliar stressors and
| dissolve the existing natural social groups that would have
| existed freely, unnatural social hierarchies develop to fill
| the gap.
| prestigious wrote:
| That's funny, I keep hearing from largely feminists that "alpha's
| don't exist in nature, it's a myth"
| fao_ wrote:
| """In 1970, the book The Wolf: Ecology and Behavior of an
| Endangered Species was published, written by David Mech. It was
| a success. The book helped to popularize the alpha concept,
| because many people referred to Mech's work.
|
| Mech has written on his website that he repeatedly asked the
| publisher to stop printing the book because much of the
| information is outdated -- including the concept behind the
| alpha wolf. Nevertheless, the book is still being sold."""
|
| https://phys.org/news/2021-04-wolf-dont-alpha-males-females....
| IanClarke wrote:
| Let's be honest and address the implicitly given analogy to our
| modern human world. What are the different motivations males and
| females have in general and why did she end up in this alpha-
| position, while still lacking a lot of the advantages a male
| would have (mating _and procreating_ with a lot of females)? It
| 's because "the other gender" _also_ carries all these
| (particularly very desirable in one gender) traits in them. I
| always think of men, which have very attractive daughters, like
| Billy Ray Cyrus (Miley Cyrus) or Rob Schneider (Elle King), but
| they themselves can 't profit that much from the interesting
| looks (nose) and rather even look like a bum, themselves.
|
| So "the other sex" _also_ inevitably carries around all these
| (attractive) traits (kind of "reciprocally"), typically: They
| are there, but don't matter, really. They were inherited and can
| be passed on, though.
|
| And in this very rare case like this: A female became an alpha.
| Her masculinity traits, which should rather only exist
| reciprocally within her (as a female), were coming out so strong,
| that she beat all the males. Though: No mass-mating (offspring)
| for her, rather likely: No offspring at all.
| [deleted]
| graderjs wrote:
| This is awesome. To get the top job, she: beat up her own mother;
| then took on the existing alpha 4x her age, and probably larger;
| then in the next 'peanut session' he had to backdown and let her
| eat first; and now she walks with an erect tail and goes and
| shakes trees for fun--It expresses her power. How cool is that!
|
| It just goes to show, it's never about gender, just about
| choices, ambition and how brave you choose to be. Fuck yeah!
|
| I wonder if the social dynamics will change under a (nominally?)
| female leader?
| yomly wrote:
| I mean we had the Amazonians, Boudica, Cleopatra, Jean D'Arc,
| Mulan, Wu Zetian...
|
| It's not like if you have a large enough sample size you won't
| discover alpha females in even the human world when it was
| dominated by physical violence prior to the invention of the
| gun.
| billytetrud wrote:
| It's interesting, but brutal. I wouldn't call this "awesome".
| Beating up your mother isn't "brave". This is literally a
| monkey dictatorship. That alpha is probably really shitty to be
| around.
| Fern_Blossom wrote:
| Quick search, macaques's lifespans are roughly 20-30 years.
| The old alpha was 31... so, in human terms (roughly), it's
| like a 20-ish year old woman beats a man in his 60s-70s...
| and she's "brave".
| serverholic wrote:
| We just going to ignore that this was the first one in 70
| years?
|
| > It just goes to show, it's never about gender, just about
| choices, ambition and how brave you choose to be.
|
| Then why is this newsworthy?
| graderjs wrote:
| Because, I suppose, people seem to have forgotten that.
| serverholic wrote:
| Forgotten what? If gender doesn't matter then why is this
| newsworthy? And if people forgot something then why did
| they forget it in the first place?
| IanClarke wrote:
| Gender doesn't matter, except when it matters. We just
| seem to not be able to agree where and when it matters.
| prvc wrote:
| Undoubtedly, the writers at the Guardian were thinking the
| same. However, one would do well to doubt whether the above
| described behaviors would be good were they to be performed by
| humans.
| taeric wrote:
| I'm struggling to see how physically fighting to get
| dominance can possibly be portrayed as a good thing. :(
|
| Noteworthy and circumstances make it a good story. But... It
| seems to fly in the face of modern sensibilities.
| thaumasiotes wrote:
| > then took on the existing alpha 4x her age, and probably
| larger;
|
| Beating up someone four times your own age is only challenging
| if you're a child.
| lm28469 wrote:
| > beat up her own mother
|
| > just about choices and how brave you choose to be
|
| Reminds me of Hollywood directors who think "alpha" women
| characters have to be regular women with all the traits of
| "toxic masculinity"
| runawaybottle wrote:
| Bill Burr always had a good joke about inclusivity in
| politics, where the gist of it is - just because you have a
| woman, or a minority as your leader, doesn't also mean that a
| woman or minority won't be a corrupt piece of shit.
|
| You'll just have diversity in corruption, nothing will truly
| change, so don't just blindly support these current
| ideologies.
| tpush wrote:
| Corruption and diversity are obviously orthogonal issues
| which I think everyone recognizes, so I'm not sure what
| point Bill Burr was trying to make. Women being just as
| corrupt as men is kind of irrelevant for any diversity
| policy; Burr's joke isn't illuminating much here.
| kevin_thibedeau wrote:
| He's attacking the "women-are-wonderful" bias which most
| people aren't cognizant of. You see lowlifes like the
| woman who assaulted the teenager last year over a phone
| hide behind their gender and act like their bad behavior
| is an impossibility.
| tpush wrote:
| I'm sure people with those biases exist, however Burr is
| willfully conflating these people with any diversity
| initiative or outreach; that's both unfounded and
| ignorant, and seems like the kind of joke that you laugh
| about until you think deeper on it for like 5 minutes.
| lliamander wrote:
| Several world leaders, including former President Barak
| Obama, have said there would be less wars if women ruled
| the world. I've seen diversity initiatives justified on
| the basis that women would make better leaders because
| they are more "empathetic".
|
| Burr is right in targeting a belief with a high-degree of
| traction, and that includes among people involved in DEI
| initiatives.
| runawaybottle wrote:
| Just read the comment below yours. People actually
| believe that there is something qualitatively different
| about gender with respect to the job.
|
| 'The world would be better if women ran it' or 'The world
| would be better if men ran it', none of these beliefs use
| objective criteria, yet it is one of the more dominant
| themes in the current zeitgeist.
| mikepurvis wrote:
| Maybe, but be careful that this argument is circulated in
| good faith and not just as a cover for getting another dude
| over the line into the job. Especially if it's a job that
| has _never_ been done by a woman, so you really don 't know
| how they might do it better.
|
| For example, it's been widely observed that on the whole,
| countries with female leadership understood and managed
| COVID better than the rest-- acting sooner, more
| decisively, and in a way that both started and stayed
| aligned to the evolving scientific understanding. A
| sprinkling of articles across varying dates:
|
| https://www.forbes.com/sites/avivahwittenbergcox/2020/04/13
| /...
|
| https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2021-01-31/women
| -...
|
| https://www.usnews.com/news/best-
| countries/articles/2021-03-...
| DonHopkins wrote:
| That's why I love Chrisjen Avasarala, in The Expanse! But
| does her potty mouth count as "toxic masculinity"?
|
| https://expanse.fandom.com/wiki/Chrisjen_Avasarala_(TV)
|
| >A master politician and maneuverer, she achieved one of the
| highest ranks in UN government without ever standing for
| election. She manipulates those in the highest seats of power
| through careful cultivation of relationships with their
| spouses, friends, and staff nearest to them. [...]
|
| >Avasarala's personality is often one of clashing traits. She
| is erudite and elegant, always properly and beautifully
| dressed, but is also notorious for her use of foul language
| and profanity, and was described by Bobbie as cursing "like a
| trucker". She has been shown to be cold and ruthless one
| moment, as she tortures a prisoner for information or
| manipulates her close friend DeGraaf into ruining his career
| for her political gain, while she is warm and maternal the
| next, playing with her grandson or giving Errinwright a
| chance to redeem himself. She is shrewd and intelligent,
| knows her way around people, and is also an astute and
| remorseless deceiver, often lying to advance her goals, such
| as when she pretended to know Captain Yvgeny to convince
| Sorrento-Gillis to do what she wanted, or attributed fake
| quotes to the deceased Admiral Souther and called him her
| friend, while in truth they barely spoke to each other.
| Blikkentrekker wrote:
| What example are you thinking of?
| graderjs wrote:
| Totally! Agree that feminists and modern women aspiring to
| adopt male traits rather than embracing innate female goddess
| energy and power is stupid, especially when they, at the same
| time, "stand against" how "toxic" men are.
|
| But then again, some of those traits you pretend are toxic,
| are actually just awesome, and work in the human world. So
| why should "man" or "woman" polarity have dibs on that stuff?
| That gendering of traits is the fucking stupid thing I think.
| Anyone can choose to do anything. Don't trust people who
| devalue choice, they're the ones that love to try to deflect
| blame and responsibility onto anyone but themselves.
|
| But yeah, the human world is pretty fucked up as a whole,
| male and female, because we're all full of ape brain shit, of
| which you're no better being human, too.
| fooperdupes wrote:
| True progress is the freedom for everyone to be an asshole.
| graderjs wrote:
| Tongue in cheek but totally true. If everyone has a voice
| and feels like they can express it (everyone "carries a
| gun" so to speak) yeah that is a pretty good
| approximation of true progress.
| hypertele-Xii wrote:
| Assholes are so underappreciated they're used for
| slander. It's an anatomical device that controls
| defecation; Keeping poop at bay while you go about your
| business.
|
| Stop calling evil "asshole" and you might find your
| pooping becomes a little easier, as that part of your
| body is no longer equivocated with _malice._
| vnchr wrote:
| There's an advocate for everything these days.
| Fern_Blossom wrote:
| Wait... are you serious? Please tell me you're being
| funny... oh God... that's where we're at nowadays... I
| think this is a sincere statement...
| hypertele-Xii wrote:
| Yeah, sincerely. Language shapes thought. An asshole
| shouldn't be a measure of malice. It's a very useful
| organ with an important job. Just like you wouldn't call
| a badly behaving individual "nigger", "gay", nor
| "retard", you shouldn't call them "dick", "asshole", nor
| "cunt" neither.
|
| Just call it what it is. By its true name. Actually say
| the thing you mean. Words exist. Deprecate outdated
| idioms and try evolving.
| ookdatnog wrote:
| > Agree that feminists and modern women aspiring to adopt
| male traits rather than embracing innate female goddess
| energy and power is stupid
|
| "Agree that"? What are you on about? The parent comment
| can't remotely be interpreted to be saying this.
|
| > ... especially when they, at the same time, "stand
| against" how "toxic" men are.
|
| The term "toxic masculinity" does not imply "masculinity =
| toxic".
|
| Rather, our culture associates certain (often positive)
| traits with what it means to "be a (real) man", such as
| strength, protectiveness, ambition, decisiveness,
| confidence, courage etc.
|
| "Toxic masculinity" is the cancerous behavior you get when
| men overshoot in trying to display these qualities, such as
| authoritarian behavior stemming from an obsession with
| being perceived as strong; being incapable of letting
| others shine due to seeing everything as a zero-sum
| competition; being unreasonably stubborn and unwilling to
| change their mind out of a desire to be perceived as
| decisive and confident; pointless risk-seeking behavior
| potentially putting others at risk etc.
| tasogare wrote:
| > The term "toxic masculinity" does not imply
| "masculinity = toxic".
|
| It totally does, this is why those two words are used in
| that expression. The plan is to skew the meaning of
| masculinity by making the colloquation widely used
| enough, until it's automatically associated with toxicity
| even when that word is not present.
| Joeboy wrote:
| > The term "toxic masculinity" does not imply
| "masculinity = toxic".
|
| It totally does though, whether that's the intention or
| not. If I talk about "greedy Frenchmen", that
| _technically_ just means, the (perhaps tiny) subset of
| Frenchmen who are greedy, but in practice, through a
| quirk of language, it also communicates an idea about
| Frenchmen being greedy.
|
| Hopefully, "greedy Frenchmen" is not an expression that
| pushes anybody's buttons too much, but I think most
| people will be able to think of comparable "[Adjective]
| [Noun]" examples that illustrate the problem more
| vividly.
| turing_complete wrote:
| I am really not sure if this comment is ironic or not. It reads
| like it has to be, but today you never know.
| doitLP wrote:
| It is not. Look at poster's other comments.
| taeric wrote:
| With most of the responses, I am also not clear on this.
| IanClarke wrote:
| I read it as ironic.
|
| If it is not then: Wow.
|
| Ridiculous statement: "It just goes to show, it's never about
| gender, just about choices, ambition and how brave you choose
| to be."
|
| Followed by: "Fuck yeah!"
|
| --> Ironic in my world, but "the other side ("feminists")
| seem to have adapted to also address / talk to
| (deceive/decept) 'more conservative' people with their
| speech. We try to include/reach each other.
| AutumnCurtain wrote:
| Interesting that she's "walking the walk" in terms of dominance
| behaviors too. It would be fascinating to study whether she
| underwent significant hormonal changes after taking leadership or
| whether she had a different hormonal makeup compared to the
| average female "follower" even prior to her takeover.
| rory wrote:
| This is all the more impressive because macaques generally
| display strong sexual dimorphism in size (males are ~45% bigger
| on average than females, vs. more like ~15% in humans). I wonder
| how big Yakei is.
| prvc wrote:
| Well, the law of large numbers makes it understandable.
| clairity wrote:
| it's strength, both psychological and physical, that correlates
| most closely with dominance, not size or gender/sex, though
| those of course tend to correlate with physical strength. a
| nice property of sexual reproduction (as opposed to asexual) is
| that you get two chances at having generalized strength in
| parents, as opposed to one, which correlates with greater
| family fitness and offspring survival.
|
| this is probably the biggest misconception in mainstream
| discussions of gender/sex and power (and part of what makes
| them so tiresome), which threads through everything from
| affirmative action to sexual harassment to lgbt rights.
| multidimensional strength fosters dominance, not just
| gender/sex or simply size. the dominant (or submissive) gender
| can be performed by either sex. this is foundational for
| understanding power dynamics (whether sexual, political,
| economic, social, religious, or anything else).
| yann2 wrote:
| Ok go read about Gandhi now.
| elliekelly wrote:
| I think the article said she's 10kg but it didn't say the size
| of the former alpha male. I wish they had mentioned the size
| difference for comparison, that's interesting!
| gambiting wrote:
| Well it does say that she roughed up the previous alpha male,
| so presumably she's at least similar in size/strength.
| tokai wrote:
| She's also 22 years younger than him.
| eadmund wrote:
| You inspired me to the lifespan of Japanese macaques, and
| it is 27 years; the previous alpha male was 31 years old,
| which suggests to me that he must have been pretty over
| the hill.
|
| Given that she is smaller than the average male macaque,
| I imagine that this is not a terribly stable situation.
| ipspam wrote:
| Interesting. What are the odds they can set up a
| livestream so we can watch macaque fight club? I love a
| good underdog.
| erhk wrote:
| I heard yakei was doping, and that she had metal studs
| implanted in her knuckles
| Blikkentrekker wrote:
| A good point; it's entirely possible that this is only a
| very temporary challenger, who will soon be challenged
| again, and be defeated.
| labster wrote:
| There should be an anime adaptation of this story:
| Sukeban Saru
| rory wrote:
| Oh wow I missed that, thanks for catching. Given these are
| Japanese macaques, it looks like typical m/f size difference
| is more like ~32%, not ~45%, and 10kg puts her larger than
| the average female, but smaller than the average male. Would
| be interested in the former alpha males size too, but it's
| probably safe to assume he was bigger!
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_macaque
| vfclists wrote:
| Too much estrogen in the water the males are drinking. They have
| become soy boys.
|
| They have become afflicted with the ills of the Western world.
|
| Serious
| [deleted]
| juanani wrote:
| How dare they and this forum. How dare you all assume they
| identify as a she. Tsk tsk, where have all the decent folk gone?
| What a sexist article, shame it's even on the front page. Where
| are all our precious ethics researchers and the twitter mob?
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