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The effectiveness of sampling methods in detecting copulatory behavior in Macaca arctoides
Author(s) -
Estep Daniel Q.,
Johnston Marcia E.,
Gordon Thomas P.
Publication year - 1981
Publication title -
american journal of primatology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.988
H-Index - 81
eISSN - 1098-2345
pISSN - 0275-2565
DOI - 10.1002/ajp.1350010410
Subject(s) - dusk , sampling (signal processing) , biology , zoology , demography , ecology , computer science , filter (signal processing) , sociology , computer vision
Abstract The copulatory behavior of a social group of 18 stumptail macaques was observed for 171 hours over a period of 5 months. The occurrence of copulation and several quantitative measures of copulation were compared using sampling periods of 2 hours daily and continuous dawn‐to‐dusk observation. In this environment copulation was found to occur in brief bouts of relatively short duration. Copulation was detected on 34% of the days observed with 2 hr sampling and 100% of the days with DTD sampling. Thus, brief limited‐time samples of behavior are not adequate for reliably detecting copulation in this species under social group‐living conditions.