Fish feeding adaptation by Rhesus Macaque Macaca mulatta(Cercopithecidae) in the Sundarban mangrove swamps,
India
Joydeb Majumder 1,
Rahul Lodh 2 & B.K. Agarwala 3
1,2,3Ecology & biodiversity
laboratories, Department of Zoology, Tripura University, Suryamaninagar, west
Tripura 799022, India
Email:1 jmtugemo@gmail.com, 2 samurah@gmail.com, 3 bagarwala00@gmail.com
(corresponding author)
Date of publication (online): 26 April
2012
Date of publication (print): 26 April
2012
ISSN 0974-7907 (online) | 0974-7893
(print)
Editor:Mewa Singh
Manuscript
details:
Ms # o2884
Received 22 July 2011
Final received 10 October 2011
Finally accepted 18 February 2012
Citation:Majumder, J., R. Lodh & B.K. Agarwala (2012). Fish feeding adaptation by
Rhesus Macaque Macacamulatta (Cercopithecidae) in the Sundarban mangrove swamps,
India. Journal of Threatened
Taxa 4(4): 2539–2540.
Copyright: ©
Joydeb Majumder, Rahul Lodh & B.K. Agarwala 2012. Creative Commons Attribution
3.0 Unported License. JoTT allows unrestricted use of this article in any
medium for non-profit purposes, reproduction and distribution by providing
adequate credit to the authors and the source of publication.
Acknowledgement: We
are very thankful to Department of CORAL, IIT Kharagpur and entire organizing
team of BDCC, 2010 for arranging such a scientific tour to the Sundarban
mangrove forest, West Bengal, and we also thankful to forest department of West
Bengal for providing us access to the different core areas of Sundarban
mangrove forest.
Rhesus Macaque Macacamulatta (Cercopithecidae), an old world monkey, is one of the
most common primate species found in both forested and human habitation
areas. It is diurnal, mostly
terrestrial and lives in large multi-male groups. Four subspecies, namely M. mulatta mulatta (Zimmermann), M. m. mcmahoni (Pocock), M. m. vestita(Milne-Edwards), and M. m.
villosa (True) (Gupta 2001) are reported. It is assessed as Least Concern by IUCN
(Timmins et al. 2008). Rhesus
Macaques are food generalists and mostly feed on the ground (Gupta 2001). However, forest groups tend to be
somewhat more arboreal than nonforest groups. In the tidal swamp forests of the Sundarbans, M. mulatta rarely
descend from the trees (Mandal 1964; Mukherjee & Gupta 1965). The natural
diet of M. mulattais primarily vegetarian and includes fruits, seeds, flowers, leaves, buds,
shoots, twigs, stems, roots, bark, pith, and resin of hundreds of species of
angiosperms, gymnosperms, and fungi (Fooden 2000) showing considerable
geographical variations (Goldstein & Richard 1989). Lindburg (1971) reported from Dehradun
that Rhesus Macaques are largely frugivorous, but occasionally ate termites,
grasshoppers, ants, and beetles. Makwana (1979), however, observed that animal food was eaten more often
and regularly in Asarori forest and Malik (1983) had observed these monkeys
eating bird eggs in Tughlaqabad. Other known animal foods include spiders, crayfish, crabs, shellfish,
and honeycombs (Fooden 2000).
Rhesus Macaques studied in the Sundarbans fed on mangrove leaves,
fruits, molluscs, and crabs (Mandal 1964). During a trip to the Sundarban mangrove forests in February
2011, we sighted an adult male Rhesus Macaque walking to the bank of estuarine
water and catching live fish and eating it (Image 1). The rest of the members of the troop observed it from a
distance for about 10 minutes and then two other members of the troop followed
the act of the first adult and were successful. This observation on M. mulatta suggests that this species is able to
feed on a variety of food available to them and, thus, show their high degree
of adaptability to a variety of food sources on trees, on the ground and in
water.
Macaques in the coastal forest rely more heavily on high-quality
fruits/seeds, which are limited resources but fruit production per tree is
higher in the coastal forest (Hanya et al. 2003). As a result, both the population and group density of
macaques is about three times higher in the coastal forest (Hanya et al.
2004). As a consequence, there are
within and between-group contests for limited food in coastal forests (van
Schaik 1989). This could have promoted adaptation to
aquatic food in Rhesus Macaques in the Sundarban mangrove swamps.
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