The measurement of hormones in urine has become a widely used technique in primatology. Because urine concentration varies according to fluid intake, concentration must be measured in each sample collected, and hormone values are always expressed per unit of concentration. Traditionally, creatinine has been used as a concentration index, but some studies in humans have shown that creatinine varies among populations and even within and between individuals within a population, and that it begins to degrade after just one freeze-thaw cycle. In addition, creatinine measurement is relatively time-consuming and expensive and creates hazardous waste. In this study, we tested the hypothesis that specific gravity, or the ratio of the density of a sample to that of water, is highly correlated with creatinine measurement in urine samples collected from captive chimpanzees at the New Iberia Research Center in Louisiana and wild chimpanzees at the Ngogo study site in the Kibale National Park, Uganda. We found that specific gravity and creatinine were highly correlated in both captive (N=124) and wild (N=13) chimpanzee samples, and that specific gravity measurement was robust to actual and simulated transport conditions and repeated freeze-thaw cycles. We recommend that researchers consider specific gravity measurement as a preferable alternative to creatinine measurement in their studies of primate endocrinology.

Chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes) are well-known to eat invertebrates, especially social insects, across Africa, but allopatric bonobos (P. paniscus) are not. Bonobo insectivory is sparsely documented and apparently sporadic. However, the availability to bonobos of social insect prey and raw materials with which to make tools to exploit them is unknown. Here, we test a set of hypotheses that relates to questions of presence, abundance, density, and distribution of taxa that Pan consume and of vegetation suitable for making extractive foraging tools. We worked at Lui Kotal, Democratic Republic of Congo, where unprovisioned bonobos live in intact forest, far from villages. We collected insect and fecal specimens, transected for prey and assessed raw materials, and monitored mounds of Macrotermes. All but 1 of the major taxa of relevant termites, ants, and (stinging) honey bees were present. The 3 main taxa of insects that chimpanzees elsewhere eat -Macrotermes (fungus-growing Int J Primatol (termites), Dorylus (Anomma; army or driver ants), and Apis (honey bees)-were abundant and widespread, and usually at densities exceeding those at well-known chimpanzee study-sites. Similarly, woody and nonwoody vegetation suitable for making fishing probes was common at mounds of Macrotermes. There is no obvious ecological reason why bonobos should not use elementary technology in extractive foraging, e.g., termite-fish, ant-fish, ant-dip, honey-dip, to obtain social insects.

G r o o m i n g H a n d C l a s p b y B o n o b o s o f L u i K o t a l , Democratic Republic of Congo.

We compare cortisol levels in monkeys at two sites with varying habitat disturbance within Kibale National Park, Uganda. Both species have higher cortisol levels at the less disturbed of the two sites. Factors such as social dynamics or predation may be responsible, illustrating the subtleties of wild primate ecophysiology.