February 25, 2025

[Press Release] Friendly but Stressed: A Novel Finding on Social Stress in Wild Japanese Macaques

Self-scratching of Japanese macaques(Credit:Maisa Sekizawa)
(Figure 1) Self-scratching of Japanese macaques /Credit: Maisa Sekizawa

Release Summary

Primates scratch their skin or fur in a stressful situation (Figure 1). By using this self-scratching behaviour as a behavioural indicator of stress, our study on wild female Japanese macaques provided a novel and counter-intuitive finding: females exhibit higher stress levels when a closely related female is nearby. This pattern was found only during foraging but not resting, suggesting that food-related competition among relatives is a cause of their elevated stress. This unexpected finding provides new insight into the complex social dynamics of primates and their stress responses.

For Details(EurekAlert!)

Information of the paper

  • Authors : Maisa SEKIZAWA, Nobuyuki KUTSUKAKE
  • Journal Name : Animal Behaviour
  • Journal Title : Influence of proximate individuals on self-scratching behaviour in wild Japanese macaques
  • DOI: 10.1016/j.anbehav.2025.123111

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