Spider monkeys found to share insider knowledge' to help locate best food

"They were observed to frequently switch subgroups of three or more individuals in a way that enabled them to share information about the location of fruit trees and timing of when they would ripen. It meant they could not only complement each other's knowledge, but also combine their information in such a way as to produce new knowledge, the research found."

"The report, published in the journal njp Complexity, said: An example would be if one subset of individuals would contribute the location of a food source and another subset the timing of the fruiting of that source. The resulting, combined knowledge by both subsets of individuals would be synergistic in the sense of allowing all of them to exploit the food source according to its location and timing."

Spider monkeys frequently switch subgroups of three or more individuals, enabling sharing of information about fruit-tree locations and ripening timing. Subgroup switching allows individuals who know different forest areas to complement and combine knowledge, producing new synergistic information that enables coordinated exploitation of food sources based on both location and timing. Observations across seven years in Mexico's Yucatan peninsula tracked individual movements and mapped core ranges, revealing that the same subgroup often never forages together twice. This fission-fusion social structure functions as an information-sharing system rather than random mingling, distributing insider knowledge across the community.

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