Wild monkeys can be "obstetricians" for pregnant friends. How male monkeys give birth to their wives Varvara Meshik Head of the Primates Department of the Moscow Zoo, Ph.D.

Childbirth in women is accompanied by pain and can last an hour or more. Therefore, during childbirth there is usually a midwife present to help the woman in labor.

In other mammals, including our closest relatives, primates, the process is much simpler, although it can cause a number of inconveniences, especially if the pregnancy is long and the fetus is quite large.

It is all the more surprising for scientists to discover examples of “obstetrics” in the wild! The latter case concerns the black rhinopithecus, a monkey from the mountainous regions of southwestern China. Black rhinopithecus live in flocks of up to four hundred individuals, but within each there are small groups of about a dozen monkeys and consisting of a male, several females and offspring (although there are also purely “male” companies).

Researchers from Dali University in Yunnan Province (China) were able to observe the process of childbirth in a young female. The birth took place in a tree and took about fifteen minutes. At the tenth minute, another monkey came running to the cries of the woman in labor - just at the moment when the baby’s head emerged from the mother’s genital tract.

Females of black rhinopithecus strengthen bonds within the group, helping each other during childbirth. (Photo by Ma Xiaobo Photography China.) When the whole head came out, the female arrived in time and grabbed the cub and pulled it out, after which she tore the afterbirth on it. A minute later, the mother took the baby from the assistant, bit the umbilical cord and began to eat the placenta. After a few more minutes, the “midwife” descended from the tree to the ground and continued the search for food, which she had been doing before the birth.

The scientists published their observations in the journal Behavioral Processes. Although childbirth can be difficult in monkeys, situations where the giving birth female cannot cope on her own are very rare. So the participation of the “midwife” may rather serve to strengthen social ties. Monkeys often pull out the baby themselves, and observant females can repeat this procedure with others.

We should also not forget that primates often live in closely knit groups, like the same rhinopithecus, in which all members are also connected family ties, so helping another also means helping your own genes.

However, examples of “obstetrics” in wild animals are extremely rare. This is what male tamarins do, for example. And female langurs use grooming to help the mother in labor relieve stress and relax.

Moreover, midwifery habits can be observed not only in primates: one of the most striking examples is Djungarian hamsters, which facilitate the birth of cubs by carefully pulling them out with their front paws and even their mouths.

Man is far from the only creature capable of experiencing tender parental feelings. In the new section “Our foster brothers,” which we are opening in this issue of the magazine, we will talk about representatives of the class of living beings to which you and I belong. The class of mammals unites the most diverse animals in size and appearance - from the tiny dwarf shrew the size of a newborn’s fist and weighing a little more than a gram to African elephant 4.5 m high and weighing 7.5 tons and a blue whale, whose length reaches 33 m and weighs 150 tons. What unites them all? Every schoolchild knows the answer to this question: like humans, they all have mammary glands and feed their young with milk.

Varvara Meshik
Head of the Department of Primates of the Moscow Zoo, Ph.D.

It’s logical to start getting acquainted with the world of mammals with our closest relatives – great apes. This is a suborder of the order of primates, which includes two families - the great apes, or gibbons, and the great apes, or pongids (they are divided into three genera: orangutans, chimpanzees and gorillas). Apes live in tropical forests and the plains of Africa (chimpanzees and gorillas), South-East Asia, including Malacca and Sumatra (gibbons), on the islands of Kalimantan and Sumatra (orangutans). They live in small herds or family groups. Large apes build nests for themselves at night, while gibbons sleep in the dense foliage in the middle part of the trees. They usually move through trees using only their hands. Eating plant foods, sometimes eat bird eggs and chicks, as well as ants and termites (chimpanzees). Chimpanzees and gorillas are considered to be closest to humans. Sometimes bonobos, close relatives of chimpanzees, which nevertheless have a number of significant differences, are identified as a separate genus of apes. It is bonobos that are more reminiscent of humans in terms of metabolic characteristics than other monkeys. social organization and behavior. Chimpanzees are more “advanced” in instrumental behavior, gorillas are known for their abilities in sign communication.

Most mammals and great apes are no exception, they are distinguished by a tender and attentive attitude towards their offspring. The more highly organized animals are, the more helpless their young are born, the longer their childhood period lasts, the more they have to learn.

The duration of pregnancy in apes approaches that of humans: 210 - 235 days in gibbons, 225 days in chimpanzees, 275 days in orangutans, 250 - 290 days in gorillas. Great apes breed all year round, females, like women, have menstrual cycles(lasting 30 - 40 days), the period of puberty begins at 7 - 10 years. Life expectancy ranges from 30 to 60 years.

Due to the fact that the Moscow Zoo specializes in breeding orangutans, we will tell you more about them.

Orangutans - These are large monkeys. The height of adult animals reaches 130 - 150 cm with an average body weight of 100 - 150 kg (especially large males in captivity can weigh up to 300 kg). Female orangutans are significantly smaller than males. At 10-12 years old, orangutans start a family, and they choose their life partner quite carefully. IN natural conditions the male occupies a huge territory, within which there are territories of several females (with cubs). He visits them one by one, sometimes they all get together. A pregnant female orangutan has a special social status(for example, in captivity, she is the first to be allowed to the feeder; she is especially popular as a grooming partner 1). Childbirth occurs very quickly, the mother immediately takes the baby (a newborn orangutan weighs about one and a half kilograms) in her arms, licks it, eats the membranes and afterbirth, bites the umbilical cord and puts it to the breast. From this moment on, for two to three weeks, the mother will literally carry the newborn baby in her arms all the time, until he himself learns to hold her fur tightly with his fingers. For another 3 - 4 years he will have to feed on his mother's milk, and for the first two years he is practically inseparable from his mother. By six months the baby begins to walk. A one-year-old orangutan already has all its milk teeth, which are replaced by permanent teeth by the age of seven. Orangutans are very clean; the mother carefully monitors hygiene: she licks the baby’s face and genitals. The father does not take part in the birth and is generally somewhat wary of both the very process of the birth of an heir and subsequent communication with him. This is also facilitated by the behavior of the mother, who treats the baby very tenderly and reverently and is ready to protect him from any dangers. Subsequently, when the baby grows up, communication and games with dad occur on the initiative of the cub. In general, a calm, friendly atmosphere reigns in the orangutan family, the baby is never punished, and the attitude towards him varies from rudely good-natured to outbursts of the most tender love.

1 Grooming is a comfortable behavior in mammals, expressed in the care of fur and addressed to another individual. In primates, it serves as a mechanism for maintaining hierarchy (low-ranking individuals clean high-ranking individuals), as well as an element of sexual behavior.

Most primates, as well as many other animals, give birth at night to avoid predators. In addition, this allows the young mother to have time to recover and begin to feed her baby. This means that scientists don't have to watch wild primates being born as often.

Human behavior of some primates

Yet after five years of monitoring a group of golden snub-nosed monkeys, researchers were finally able to see one of the females give birth during the day. Scientists even managed to take a photo of this event.

But the surprises don't end there, as the young mother did not go through childbirth alone. Next to her was a second female, who not only calmed the woman in labor, but also helped her clean the baby. This clearly indicates “human” behavior, although scientists have previously concluded that only a few primates act as midwives for their relatives, including one of our closest relatives, the Binabo. Why do so few primates do this?

What influenced the development of obstetrics?

It was initially thought that the development of human obstetrics was influenced by the position of the fetus during birth. In other primate species, after the baby is born, the mother is able to immediately lift the baby and clear the airways. A person does not have such an opportunity.

However, in 2011, scientists were no longer so confident in this theory. They were lucky enough to witness the birth of a chimpanzee for the first time. It turned out that the position of the fetus during childbirth in these primates is the same as in humans. However, chimpanzees do not have “midwives”.

How does childbirth occur in monkeys?

But in the case of golden snub-nosed monkeys, researchers found that as soon as the pregnant female began to show signs of the beginning of the birth process, the second one came to her aid. She stayed by my side when the contractions started and helped pull the baby out. After the mother fed and licked the baby, she allowed the second female to wash it again. For several hours after giving birth, the mother allowed the "midwife" and another female to hold the baby. At the same time, the young monkeys, who also came to look at the woman in labor, were immediately driven away.

The birth lasted just 4 minutes and 10 seconds, after which the young mother severed the umbilical cord and then ate the placenta to restore vital nutrients in organism. The second female remained next to her all this time. It's still unknown how common this behavior is in monkeys, but researchers hope to answer the question by filming births at night. They want to see if other females will be as attentive.

For many years, researchers watched the monkeys, and finally they were able to see an amazing picture: wild golden snub-nosed monkeys sometimes give birth not alone, but with the help of a midwife. This a rare event gave scientists the opportunity to study the social and natural factors that influence the birth of these Chinese primates, reports "UP" with reference to the BBC, reports.

Most often, monkeys give birth at night, as darkness makes them less vulnerable to predators than daylight.

This means that what scientists saw is a rare occurrence.

The daybirth, during which scientists were able to see the birth of a monkey, lasted only 4 minutes and 10 seconds. It happened in the Qinling Mountains in China.

The second female monkey, a midwife, was with the woman in labor the entire time, helping her at the first sign of discomfort. The monkey began to caress expectant mother when contractions become obvious and painful.

When the baby's head emerged, the midwife attempted to remove the monkey from the birth canal.

The mother took control of the situation when the baby's head was completely out, but her “friend” did not leave and helped until the monkey was born. And then she took care of her mother.

The woman in labor bit the umbilical cord and ate the placenta.

Once the baby was cleaned and fed, the midwife was allowed to hold and lick it.

Only 77 minutes passed after the birth, the mother forbade all other monkeys to hold the baby, and began to take care of him on her own.

Previously, scientists observed somewhat similar situations in black-and-white snub-nosed monkeys and langur species. However, since the birth took place at night, it was difficult for scientists to evaluate what they saw.

However, zoologists were previously confident that birth allowance was not common among wild primates.