Man is far from single creature capable of experiencing tender parental feelings. In the new heading "Our Milk Brothers", which we are opening in this issue of the magazine, we will talk about the representatives of that class of living beings, to which we also belong. The mammalian class unites animals of the most diverse in size and appearance - from a tiny dwarf shrew the size of a newborn's fist and weighing just over a gram to african elephant 4.5 m in height and 7.5 tons in weight and a blue whale with a length of up to 33 m and a mass of 150 tons. What unites them all? Every schoolchild knows the answer to this question: like humans, they all have mammary glands and feed their young with milk.
Varvara Meshik
Head of the Department of Primates of the Moscow Zoo, Ph.D.
It is logical to start acquaintance with the world of mammals with our closest relatives - great apes. This is a suborder of the primate order, which includes two families - small great apes, or gibbons, and large apes, or pongids (they are divided into three genera: orangutans, chimpanzees and gorillas). Great apes live in rainforest and the plains of Africa (chimpanzees and gorillas), South-East Asia, including Malacca and Sumatra (gibbons), on the islands of Kalimantan and Sumatra (orangutans). They keep in small herds or family groups... Large apes build their nests at night, while gibbons sleep in dense foliage in the middle of trees. They usually move through trees only with the help of their hands. Feed on plant food, sometimes eat bird eggs and chicks, as well as ants and termites (chimpanzees). Chimpanzees and gorillas are considered the closest to humans. Sometimes bonobos, close relatives of chimpanzees, are distinguished as a separate genus of great apes, which, nevertheless, have a number of significant differences. It is bonobos that more than other monkeys resemble humans in terms of metabolic features, social organization and behavior. Chimpanzees are more "advanced" in instrumental behavior, and gorillas are known for their ability to communicate with signs.
Most mammals, and great primates no exception, they are distinguished by a gentle and attentive attitude towards their offspring. The more highly organized animals, the more helpless their young are born, the longer their childhood period lasts, the more they have to learn.
The duration of pregnancy in great apes is close to that in humans: 210 - 235 days for gibbons, 225 days for chimpanzees, 275 days for orangutans, 250 - 290 days for gorillas. Great apes breed all year round, females, like women, have menstrual cycles (lasting 30 - 40 days), the period of puberty begins at 7 - 10 years. Life expectancy ranges from 30 to 60 years.
Due to the fact that the Moscow Zoo specializes in breeding orangutans, we will tell you more about them.
Orangutans - it large monkeys... The growth of adult animals reaches 130 - 150 cm at average weight bodies 100 - 150 kg (especially large males in captivity can weigh up to 300 kg). Orangutan females are significantly smaller than males. At 10 - 12 years old, orangutans start a family, and they rather carefully choose their life partner. V natural conditions the male occupies a huge territory, within which there are the territories of several females (with calves). He visits them one by one, sometimes they all get together. A pregnant female orangutan has a special social status(for example, in captivity, she is first allowed to go to the trough; she is especially popular as a grooming partner 1). Childbirth occurs very quickly, the mother immediately takes the baby (a newborn orangutan weighs about one and a half kilograms) in her arms, licks it, eats the shell and afterbirth, bites the umbilical cord and applies it to the breast. From that moment on, for two or three weeks, the mother will all the time carry the newborn baby in the literal sense of the word in her arms, until he himself learns to hold his fingers tightly to her fur. For another 3-4 years he will have to feed on mother's milk, and for the first two years he is practically inseparable from his mother. By the age of six months, the baby begins to walk. A one-year-old orangutan already has all milk teeth, which are replaced by permanent ones by the age of seven. Orangutans are very clean, the mother carefully monitors hygiene: she licks the baby's face and genitals. The Pope does not take part in childbirth and, in general, is somewhat apprehensive about both the very process of the birth of an heir and the subsequent communication with him. This is facilitated by the behavior of the mother, who is very tender and reverent towards the baby and is ready to protect him from any dangers. Subsequently, when the baby grows up, communication and games with the dad take place on the initiative of the baby. In general, a calm, benevolent atmosphere reigns in the family of orangutans, the baby is never punished, the attitude towards him varies from rude-good-natured to outbursts of the most tender love.
1 Grooming is a comfortable behavior in mammals, expressed in grooming the coat and addressed to another individual. In primates, it serves as a mechanism for maintaining a hierarchy (individuals of a low rank clean high-ranking ones), as well as an element of sexual behavior.
Unfortunately, physical disabilities are not uncommon among monkeys. Many of them lose limbs in traps left by hunters for other animals. However, among chimpanzees, there are also people with disabilities from birth. But if wildlife is not a fertile springboard for studying the social skills of anthropoid apes, then in the conditions of reserves, research into the behavioral skills of chimpanzees becomes possible.
Baby chimpanzee with Down syndrome symptoms
A group of scientists closely monitored a family of chimpanzees living in the Mahale Mountains in National park Tanzania. It was there that a sick cub was seen with signs resembling Down syndrome. At first, the researchers did not notice any abnormalities in two newborn chimpanzees, one of which, a girl, was given the name XT11. The mother of the cubs, Christina, cared equally for each of her offspring. 
However, 6 months after birth, the first signs of developmental abnormality in XT11 began to be noted. Her brother was more active, could sit up on his own, and showed social interest. The sick baby, on the other hand, did not show social interest to other members of the group of wild chimpanzees, she could not sit on her own and was completely dependent on her mother.
Symptoms of the disease
Along with the alleged mental disability, scientists have noticed some physical abnormalities in XT11. The baby had an impressive abdominal hernia, visible damage to the spine, areas on the body with bald patches, and an extra finger on her left hand. In addition, she often kept her mouth half open. Despite all this, the mother's care kept XT11 alive for nearly two years. 
Mother's amazing behavior
In this study, the greatest interest of scientists was caused by the 37-year-old chimpanzee Christina. Scientists have never seen mothers in wildlife interact with their disabled toddlers. When Christina realized that something was wrong with the cub, she completely adapted her usual behavior to the new realities: she carried the offspring on her chest, held it during feeding and gave up fishing for her favorite delicacy - wild ants. In addition to this, Christina's eldest child also assisted the mother in caring for the disabled person.
Family teamwork
So, the poor cub could not move independently and constantly clung to its mother. Christina adapted to this, moving around with only one free hand, while the other at this time was busy supporting the disabled cub. Christina was ready to make all sorts of sacrifices, even completely refuse to catch ants. However, she came to her aid eldest daughter, who temporarily took XT11 under her wing, thereby allowing her tired mother to get enough of her favorite delicacy. 
A hint of social activity in wild monkeys
This study gives us a clear understanding of the social caring and mutual support that exists in the wild chimpanzee environment. It was previously believed that great apes did not show signs of social support and that this phenomenon in the process of evolution became an exclusive feature of ancient people. In fact, everything turned out to be somewhat different. It turns out that not only people can take care of their own kind.
Monkeys: Model Mothers
We are all familiar with the expression that reflects the social nature of human nature: "No man is an island" - literally meaning "Man is not an island", a person cannot live alone. Most primates - including monkeys and monkeys - are social animals that spend their entire lives in a group. And the closest bond in the group is the bond between the mother and her baby. Baby monkeys seek contact with their mother, as soon as they are born - they cling to the mother's belly, warm and soft, where they find nourishment and protection; and having matured a little, the monkeys move on the back of their mother, thus occupying an excellent position for a safe view of the world around them. Monkey mothers do not leave their babies alone - on the contrary, they carry them with them everywhere and everywhere, thereby further strengthening the bond between mother and child.
Mother and cub are the strongest bond
Newborn babies are a source of excitement in the primate group. However, monkey mothers are extremely jealous of protecting their young from the enthusiastic hands of other relatives. Only over time, the monkey mother allows others to hold her baby, and they caress, comb and play with him. The primate community plays an active role in raising children. Thus, macaques and most baboons live in communities with very close female bonds, and those who become mothers for the first time are treated very carefully, they are fed and trained. Female vervet monkeys even help each other take care of their cubs.
Yet the closest bond in primate groups is between mother and cub. Even adult male chimpanzees, after a quarrel with the rest, go to their aged mothers to calm and care for them. Females of most primate species stay with their mothers throughout their lives, and as mothers age, their daughters take care of them. The primatologist Jessica describes a very old rhesus monkey that lived on an island off the coast of Costa Rica: “She was 31 years old — a very old age for a macaque. She was so weak that she could barely keep up with the group of her kind who moved around the island. But she was always by her side youngest daughter, she is already a mother. She spent next to her mother, once an alpha female, and now located only at the foot social hierarchy, a lot of time. She was often seen next to her old mother, when she was sleeping - her daughter was combing her. If necessary, the daughter was the first to rush to protect her mother. "
Human exploitation of the mother-calf bond
In the wild, hunters hired by experimental scientists to trap monkeys use the mother-child bond to their advantage. Primate mothers are killed in the trees, and then the baby monkeys are taken away, who in panic cling to dead body mother. If other monkeys approach the body of a killed monkey, they are also caught. Many weaned babies soon fall ill and die from inadequate and inappropriate food, locked in cramped baskets while being transported away from their homes and families.
Loss trauma
For primate babies that are born in the laboratory, life is just as tragic. Here, the cubs are taken from the mother as early as three days after birth. Babies experience severe stress and are often unable to develop normal social relations further. Monkeys are usually kept in tight, solitary cages, which exacerbates stress.
Primate mothers naturally scream and fight when babies clinging to their bellies are taken away from them. For them, the trauma of losing a baby is also very deep.
“Newborn monkeys, blind or impaired locomotor system receive all the necessary care from their mother. The main thing is that the baby is able to cling to the mother's belly - this is the only test that needs to be passed. It turned out - and the mother will accept and love her baby. And then she will carefully support the baby, even if he is too weak and it is difficult for him to hold on. The ape mother is extremely attached to her cub. And even if the baby died, she will carry a limp body with her for whole days: very carefully, gently, leaving only for a short time while eating. Gradually, the distance between the mother and the object of her unfulfilled hopes grows. She goes further and further in search of food. Gradually, she returns to the already dried body, she for shorter periods of time, until one day, reluctantly and with obvious doubts, the mother monkey leaves the little body, which by that time has turned into a shrunken lump of fur. "
(Sarah Bluffer Hardy, anthropologist and sociobiologist-primatologist).
In laboratories, workers separate mother and child by placing the mother monkey in a so-called “squeeze cage,” a metal wire device with a back panel that can be pushed forward with two handles. The mother and the cub that grabbed her are pressed against the front wall of the cage, so that the limbs, body and muzzle of the resisting mother are literally flattened with metal rods. The "compression cage" is equipped with leg holes, which are commonly used to anchor the limbs of an adult monkey for injection or blood collection. In the case of the mother and cub, the technician grabs the tail or limb of the cub through these holes and pulls it towards himself, lifting it from the mother's breast. If she has the strength and opportunity, the mother resists and tries to hold her baby, so that the technician almost rips off his limb, trying to rip it off from the mother. During this "procedure" the mother screams or makes barking sounds; the baby also screams shrilly. Both mother and cub defecate from fear and stress. The toddler is eventually pulled out through the leg opening.
Primate mothers form a close bond with their newborn calves almost immediately after birth. Researchers show that mothers are able to distinguish their children from others in the first days after their birth. The young of most macaque and baboon species depend on their mothers for a long period; eating from the breast for at least a year. The grown-up brothers and sisters of the newborn stay close to the mother, and while she feeds the newborn, they learn what to eat, where to sleep, how to behave in case of danger. Therefore, it is not surprising that when a baby is taken from a mother, she is very for a long time experiencing loss.
Primatologist Jessica Ghana and Nancy Megna, a former animal care assistant in the laboratory, shared what they saw at the Yerkes National Primate Research Center: - her screams are similar to sorrowful moaning. She does this constantly, sometimes sitting to the side of the rest of the group of monkeys, sometimes sitting under the cage door and looking out. When she saw a passing car belonging to the research center, she began to scream even more desperately. If a worker walked past the cage, the monkey walked along the cage next to him, looking into his face and continuing to scream sorrowfully. The little ones also scream pitifully and mournfully, in the hope that they will be returned to their mothers. This depressing, traumatic experience is repeated over and over again when researchers take away babies from monkey mothers. ”
http://www.stopanimaltests.com/Getactive.asp
http://www.stopanimaltests.com/primates-maternalbonds.asp#strongestbond
In this amazing picture, everything is clear without words ... Are you my new mom? - the baby chimpanzee asks with all its touching appearance.
Are you my new mom? - Little Ruby / Oklahoma City Zoo asks with open eyes
This little chimpanzee named Ruben was born at Lowry Park Zoo in Florida, USA, back in February this year. And a day later he was left all alone, as his mother named Rukiya (Rukiya) died after a difficult birth.
The rest of the chimpanzee family showed complete indifference to Rubin, even his own father not interested in him. In view of all these events, the staff of the zoological park had to take care of the baby.
Oklahoma city zoo
He was wrapped in blankets, fed with formula milk from a bottle, did not sleep at night and rejoiced at the appearance of the first tooth. And when he first stood on his hind legs, everyone rejoiced as if it were theirs. native child took his first steps. However, time passed inexorably forward, the baby became older, more active and larger. It became clear that it could not go on for so long ...
Oklahoma city zoo
Ruby climbed the branches of trees, acquiring the first skills of chimpanzees, but they were not complete due to the lack of illustrative example chimpanzees like him. One of the monkeys had to teach the baby all the necessary skills. So that a full-fledged chimpanzee grows out of him, and not an animal tamed by man.
Oklahoma city zoo
They decided to find a foster mother for the cub who would take care of him as if own son... Zoo staff began to look for the monkey in other zoos in the country and soon found it at the Oklahoma City Zoo. The mother-to-be was called Kito.
- An excellent mother should come out of Quito, since she has a highly developed maternal instinct- explains Robin Newby (Robin Newby) the caretaker of primates, - she could take care of someone else's cub. She gets along remarkably well with all the cubs that come up to her. She is quite friendly and kind with everyone.
Oklahoma city zoo
The keeper of the chimpanzee enclosure from Lowry Park Zoo Lee Ann Rottman found it very difficult to part with Ruby, because she took care of him for eight whole months and was very attached to the baby. However, after making sure that the chimpanzee family accepted him into their group, she left Rubin with a light heart at the Oklahoma City Zoo, realizing that little chimpanzee it will be better there.
Oklahoma city zoo
Rubin was introduced to the family gradually, giving him and other chimpanzees the opportunity to get to know each other better. And after a while he met Quito. The monkey reacted correctly, as everyone expected: she began to build a nest, collecting straw and rags throughout the enclosure. She acted as if she were his own mother. It was a good sign.
Ruby (left) with his mother Quito and her eldest son Siri / Oklahoma City Zoo
The kid himself was very surprised by what was happening - in the photo he got a completely amazed face. But very soon Rubin clung to the wool on her back, clinging to her like dear mom... He also developed a good relationship with his "stepfather" - the largest male of the group named Mwami (Mwami). Now the life of the little ruby, fortunately, went smoothly ...
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