Chimpanzee and red colobus

by Craig B. Stanford

Our closest living relatives, the chimpanzees, are familiar enough - bright and ornery and promiscuous. But they also kill and eat their kin, in this case the red colobus monkey, which may say something about primate - even hominid - evolution. This book, the first detailed account of a predator-prey relationship involving two wild primates, documents a six-year investigation into how the risk of predation molds primate society. Taking us to Gombe National Park in Tanzania, a place made famous by Jane Goodall's studies, the book offers a close look at how predation by wild chimpanzees - observable in the park as nowhere else - has influenced the behavior, ecology, and demography of a population of red colobus monkeys.