How different are captive primates?
Captive primates get their daily food for free, so they have time on their hands. Their social life intensifies as a result. Captive primates are generally healthier, and hence live longer than primates in the field. They are also less free, but this is a typically human take on their life that may not be felt the same by the animals themselves, especially those born in captivity (some great insights on this can be found in Life of Pi by Yann Martel). This is not to say that we can get all of our information on primate behavior from captivity. We need to know a behavior’s natural function to know how it may have evolved. For this, we absolutely need data from the wild. Nothing can replace the arduous work of field primatologists. On the other hand, in the wild it is impossible to do certain behavioral experiments so that conclusions are often hard to draw. For example, if apes in certain wild communities crack nuts with stones, the question is if each individual discovered this by itse
