Food-washing monkeys recognize the law of diminishing returns.

Abstract

Few animals have the cognitive faculties or prehensile abilities needed to eliminate tooth-damaging grit from food surfaces. Some populations of monkeys wash sand from 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 (<i>Macaca fascicularis</i>) inhabiting Koram Island, Thailand, and it motivated us to explore the factors that drive individual variability. We measured the mineral and physical properties of contaminant sands and conducted a field experiment, eliciting 1282 food-handling bouts by 42 monkeys. Our results verify two long-standing presumptions: monkeys have a strong aversion to sand and removing it is intentional. Reinforcing this result, we found that monkeys clean foods beyond the point of diminishing returns, a suboptimal behavior that varied with social rank. Dominant monkeys abstained from washing, a choice consistent with the impulses of dominant monkeys elsewhere: to prioritize rapid food intake and greater reproductive fitness over the long-term benefits of prolonging tooth function.