Infanticide by a male spectral tarsier (Tarsius spectrum). Academic Article uri icon

abstract

  • As part of a long-term field study on the behavioral ecology and conservation of a population of spectral tarsiers (Tarsius spectrum) in Tangkoko Nature Reserve, Sulawesi, Indonesia, I observed the first known instance of infanticide in this species. A young infant was killed by a neighboring male. Neither the epiphenomenal aggression hypothesis, social pathology hypothesis, nutritive benefits of cannibalism hypothesis, nor sexual selection hypothesis are supported by this observation. The only hypothesis that could not be rejected outright, on the basis of this single observation, was the competition for limited resources hypothesis.

published proceedings

  • Primates

altmetric score

  • 3

author list (cited authors)

  • Gursky-Doyen, S.

citation count

  • 4

complete list of authors

  • Gursky-Doyen, Sharon

publication date

  • October 2011