MaRGA Meeting, 2004: Abstracts

16: Neuroscience / Communication / Behavior

Sex Differences in Play Behavior
Among Captive Common Marmosets (Callithrix jacchus)

H. Guard, K.T. Jenkins, L.A. Zemba and R.L. Roberts

Affiliation: Laboratory of Comparative Ethology, NICHD, National Institutes of Health, Poolesville, MD

Social play behavior may be an expression of affiliation that impacts subsequent social development and may function as a means of acquiring knowledge and abilities that provide animals with the optimal chance for survival as social adults. Differences in play behavior between male and female primates have been recorded in various studies, but few studies have examined play in common marmosets, a monogamous New World primate that exhibits relatively little behavioral sexual dimorphism or sexual division of labor. In our study, play behaviors, along with other social and non-social behaviors were recorded in eleven captive common marmoset (Callithrix jacchus) family groups. When initiating play, both male infants (1-6 months old) and juveniles (over 7 months old) played for a longer average duration than females, particularly when initiating rough and tumble play. Our results indicate that play behavior differs between males and females in ways that mirror differences in the behavior of adults, and this sex difference is present at the time that play emerges. Individual differences in the composition of litters and family groups might influence the expression of play behavior in ways that inform competing hypotheses about the adaptive function of play behavior.