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    New Male Terminates Monkey Pregnancies

    Click here to listen to this podcast

    In the lab, female rodents sometimes terminate their pregnancies after being exposed to new males. It’s called the Bruce effect, for researcher Hilda Bruce. Now a study in the journal Science [link to come] finds that the Bruce effect occurs in the wild, and likely ups evolutionary fitness.

    To discover whether the Bruce effect is a naturally occurring adaptive strategy, researchers from the University of Michigan observed a wild population of gelada monkeys. They measured hormones in the animals’ feces to identify pregnant females and their conception dates.

    Gelada monkeys live in small groups, with several females and a single male. When a rival displaces the male in a gelada family, he frequently kills his predecessor’s progeny. And the females know it. The researchers found that females impregnated by the old male terminate 80 percent of their pregnancies after the new male takes over.

    Those females were quicker to conceive again with the new male than were females who hadn’t been pregnant. Rather than producing offspring at risk of death, females subject to the Bruce effect invest in new progeny—with a better chance of survival.

    —Sophie Bushwick

    [The above text is a transcript of this podcast.]
     

    Follow Scientific American on Twitter @SciAm and @SciamBlogs. Visit ScientificAmerican.com for the latest in science, health and technology news.
    © 2012 ScientificAmerican.com. All rights reserved.

     
    • Wentra  •  3 mths ago
      How exactly do they terminate their own pregnancies?
    • Scythe Falling  •  3 mths ago
      In lion prides, a new male that displaces another male will kill his cubs. Also on a show about wild horses, a stallion killed the foal of a rival male. Not that uncommon in the animal kingdom.
      • Sharon 3 mths ago
        Not that uncommon in the human part of the animal kingdom!! She gets pregnant by someone, has already switched partners, off she goes to have the abortion. Same thing as with the monkeys.
      • Dean48089 3 mths ago
        Too many times a man beats to death his wife's children from a previous relationship. You hear it on the news all the time. We're not so far from those monkeys after all.
      • adarc 3 mths ago
        Yes this all true, and very common in just about every species, but what they are talking about is the female spontaneously aborting the offspring of the former mate, to make herself available for the new male.
    • frnimay  •  Fresno, California  •  3 mths ago
      hmm to bad they did not mention how the females are able to do that...just taking a guess I would say that when confronted by a new dominate male they are able to adjust their hormones and cause a spontaneous abortion, and come into breeding reception. we have evolved so far that we cant do that without a pill. some animals can actually smell the difference between their offspring and another males offspring
      • ghostie 3 mths ago
        Human mothers can tell the diffrences between their childs cry and another childs during infancy and will normaly mother children that arent their own. Human men typically wont father children that are not their own sons more than daughters, and if they do have step kids, its very rare for them to get involved with that child. I have been a step child, both for a woman and a man and the guy seriously did not want me nor my sister there, where as the woman who had a son, was more than willing to be a mother figure when i had visitation with my dad. Humans are just the same, we just see animal behavior as lower than ours, but we still treat kids the same way
      • JoeMawma 3 mths ago
        I like how you "take a guess" about a theory that was already posted a half dozen times before you came along.
      • Sharon 3 mths ago
        Ghostie -- that is true in most cases, but there are exceptions!! Exceptions have happened 3 times in my close family.
    • TJquarters  •  Youngstown, Ohio  •  3 mths ago
      How?
      • Scythe Falling 3 mths ago
        They miscarry.
      • matts 3 mths ago
        Spontaneous miscarriage-nature's way. Related to hormone changes.
      • Anthony 3 mths ago
        Clothes Hangers !!!!
    • Christina  •  Massillon, Ohio  •  3 mths ago
      This explains why most children who I read about in the news that has died of child abuse usually involves a step-parent. Humans are very much the same as these monkeys unfortunately.
      • Kidd Badpatty 3 mths ago
        very insightful, and unfortunately, probably true.
      • Alfinisti 3 mths ago
        We are simply hairless apes not that far removed from the chimpanzees. We are a bit more clever, larger brain, walk upright with more effecient hands. But emotionally and electro-chemically we havn[t changed much in the last 100,000 years.
      • Brian 3 mths ago
        alfinisti--am i going to need a jacket next week? I like to be prepared.
    • timothy  •  3 mths ago
      miscarriage is common in high stress situations.
    • Ignatius  •  3 mths ago
      That headline was irresistable, wasn't it?
    • Justin  •  Madison, Wisconsin  •  3 mths ago
      I love how everything, not matter what the content of the article is, always comes does to religion and politics.
    • Rainhorse2003  •  3 mths ago
      Does the Pope know about this ??
    • Bill  •  3 mths ago
      I hear there's already a special Congressional committee forming to wring their hands over this terrible dilemma. And none of the whining committee members even have a uterus.
    • strangedreamer59  •  Atlanta, Georgia  •  3 mths ago
      I am glad this is not named after me.
    • Fred  •  Meriden, Connecticut  •  3 mths ago
      A little more explanation of monkey's ability to terminate their own pregnancy would have been helpful in understanding this unusual aspect of their behavior..
    • JRobert  •  St Augustine, Florida  •  3 mths ago
      Wait till they evolve (or would that be devolve) enough for simian attorneys to develop and the child support to begin.
    • LNH  •  3 mths ago
      I told you Beotches I don't want any kids...
    • Coco the Wonderchimp  •  Madison, Wisconsin  •  3 mths ago
      #$%$ straight!!
    • GG  •  3 mths ago
      Weird. I wonder if this effect has been studied in humans.
    • Laura A  •  3 mths ago
      I just had to see where that headline was going to go....
    • Capt. Thunderpants  •  Houston, Texas  •  3 mths ago
      Breaking News:"Right to Life" groups are mobilizing to protest at gelada monkey encampments. GOP legislators are gearing up to demand that Ethiopia pass laws requiring mandatory sonograms and a 24 hour waiting period for any monkey that elects to abort its offspring.
    • blue cow  •  Ruston, Louisiana  •  3 mths ago
      does the new male push them down some monkee stairs we dont know about or something?
    • A Yahoo! user  •  Chandler, Arizona  •  3 mths ago
      and they also allow gay marriages, if you know what i mean...
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