Food-washing monkeys recognize the law of diminishing returns

Abstract

Few animal species have the cognitive faculties or prehensile abilities needed to eliminate costly tooth-damaging grit from food surfaces. Some populations of monkeys wash sandy foods when standing water is readily accessible, but this propensity varies within groups for reasons unknown. Spontaneous food-washing emerged recently in a group of long-tailed macaques (Macaca fascicularis) on Koram Island, Thailand, motivating us to explore the factors that drive individual variation. We measured the mineral and physical properties of contaminant sands and conducted a field experiment, eliciting 1,282 food-handling bouts by 42 monkeys. Our results verify two long-standing presumptions, that monkeys have a strong aversion to sand and that removing it is intentional. Reinforcing this point, monkeys clean foods beyond the point of diminishing returns, a suboptimal behaviour that varies with rank. Dominant monkeys abstain from washing, balancing the long-term benefits of mitigating tooth wear against immediate energetic requirements, an essential predictor of reproductive fitness.