EXPERIMENTAL FIELD-STUDY OF SPATIAL MEMORY AND LEARNING IN WILD CAPUCHIN MONKEYS (CEBUS-CAPUCINUS)

Despite a large body of data on diet and ranging patterns in prosimian s, monkeys and apes, little is known regarding the types of informatio n that non-human primates use when making foraging decisions, In a ser ies of controlled field experiments, we tested the ability of wild cap uchins (Cebus cupucinus) at La Suerte Biological Research Station in n orth-eastern Costa Rica to remember the spatial positions of 13 feedin g platforms and use olfactory and visual cues to identify baited (real bananas) versus sham (plastic bananas) feeding sites. The results ind icate that when 'place' was predictable, the capuchins learned the spa tial locations of food and non-food sites rapidly (one-trial learning) , In a second experiment, the positions of baited feeding sites were r andom, In the absence of other information, the capuchins used the pre sence of a local landmark cue (yellow block) placed at reward platform s to select feeding sites, In a final experiment, there was evidence t hat expectations regarding the amount of food available at a platform (2 bananas vs, 1/2 banana) had a significant influence on capuchin for aging decisions, Although the capuchins were sensitive to changes in e xperimental conditions, when they were given conflicting cues, spatial information was predominant over other information in selecting feedi ng sites.