Primate Anti-predator Strategies, by S. Gursky and K. A. I. Nekaris

Abstract

S. Gursky, K. A. I. Nekaris (eds.). 2007.Primate Antipredator Strategies., Springer, New York, XX pp. ISBN ISBN -10:0-387-34807-7, price (hardbound), $129. This book on antipredator defenses in primates is successful in 2 ways: making predation a central focus in primatology, and puncturing the idea that small primates rely solely on crypsis and nocturnality to escape predators. The book, therefore, is aimed at quite a specific audience—primatologists— and those principally working on lemurs, galagos, tarsiers, and pottos. Primate anti-predator strategies starts with 2 general chapters: 1 by Zuberbuhler and 1 by Hart. The former presents interesting material on referential alarm calling and then goes on to advance the idea that predation drives cognitive skills in primates. The latter compares biogeographic patterns of predation in Africa, Madagascar, Asia, and the Neotropics, and concludes that felids, raptors, and—in Madagascar—the fossa ( Cryptoprocta ferox ) are the principal predators of primates. This meta-analysis is the summary of a doctoral thesis, as far as I could tell, but a useful one nonetheless. Next is a 10-chapter section on antipredator strategies of nocturnal primates that constitutes the core of the book and could have been its title. First, Dollar and colleagues show, using detailed data from scats, that the fossa is not a lemur specialist as is sometimes assumed, but takes birds, rodents, and reptiles too. Next, Karpanty and Wright use direct observations to demonstrate that lemurs are …