Research article

Vocal, gestural repertoire and multimodal communication in wild Barbary macaques

*Faical Boutlib^{1, 2}, Hichame Dahdouh² and Varvara Vladimirova²

¹Department of Mammology and Primatology, Centre National Scientific Institute, Rabat, Morocco
²Moroccan Association for Protection of Heritage and Barbary Macaques, Fez, Morocco

*Corresponding Author E-mail: faysalbo@gmail.com, Telephone: +212- 771574255

Accepted 10 May, 2020

Abstract

Multimodal communication, as well as vocal and gestural repertoire were investigated in a group of wild Barbary macaques (Macaca sylvanus) living in the Middle Atlas mountains of Morocco. Thirty minutes continuous focal animal samples were collected daily for five months consisting of the compilation of all gestures and facial expressions, occurrences and the recording of all vocalisations. Spectrograms were produced to clarify variations in the different call types and contexts for each call type were determined. The analyses revealed that there is a peak of calls’ utterance in infancy while adults communicate more with gestural and facial signals. Infants are able to utter all call types but tend to combine it with a higher and more diversified rate than adults do. Moreover, analyses showed that some calls are sex-specific. Regarding multimodal signals, they were formed for the most part by facial expressions and communicated mostly during agonistic interactions. The discovery of new gestures and the development of infants’ vocal repertoire are discussed. The results suggest that wild populations give a more and new accurate picture of the species’ natural repertoire.

Keywords: Macaques, Multimodal communication, Gesture and Facial expression, Vocal repertoire.