Missy takes her job seriously. Like a hockey enforcer, her role is to aggressively protect her MVP, Jamie, and ensure everyone plays by the rules. But she’s also quick to reconcile after a conflict. After all, it’s nothing personal—she’s just doing her job.
Chimpanzees are actually quite well known for reconciling to maintain peace and repair relationships after conflicts. While chimpanzee fights can be loud, scary, and dangerous for those involved, opponents will often seek each other out almost immediately after a conflict to embrace, groom, and kiss. This may seem counterintuitive at first, but it demonstrates the value of social relationships in the chimp world.
JB – Why does Jamie direct her aggression so much at Foxie in particular?
Amy
For the reason any bully picks the weak kid in class as their target-because she can
It’s possible that Foxie is just a safe target by which to send a message to the entire group. And Foxie will always give the reaction that Jamie is looking for. Jamie used to focus this type of behavior on Jody, which I interpreted as her feeling threatened by Jody’s status. That definitly not the case with Foxie.
Thanks, JB!
What pray tell did poor little Foxie do to deserve all that?! So pleased to see Burrito coming to stand by her side. My hero. Luckily it was a quick scuffle and once over, Jamie found herself in the middle of a grooming circle. Well played.
Even though I know it’s natural and part of the way they are wired, I don’t always like Jamie when she does this. So many times in the past, there were videos of them playing together, I almost felt they were besties. Has Jamie been spotted playing with anyone lately? Seems like it’s been a while.
As bad as I felt for the fabulous Ms Fox, check out the way she looked, crouching down, arms squared out, taking up space. Such a strange position; she looked like she was ready to launch!
I saw Jamie sitting in the raceway not so much as a “cold shoulder’ as a way of stubbornly preventing Foxie from coming back in. Good on Bubba for staying in the raceway between them. Our boy turned into a fine man.
I found Foxie’s Crouch very interesting, too. In my mind, I was dubbing it “the crocodile crouch.” I’m not sure if I’ve seen that position before from the chimps.
The crouch is a submissive posture which can be seen when a subordinate individual greets a dominant individual (to avoid conflict) or, in this case, when a subordinate individual is seeking to end conflict and/or seek reconciliation with a dominant individual.
That’s the thing about chimps – they can be besties and also harrass and pick on each other. Foxie is most likely to be seen playing with Burrito these days (who isn’t?). I think you’re correct as to the reason for Jamie’s tunnel blocking – with the cold shoulder, I was refering to her walking past Foxie without acknowledging her.
Even though I know it’s natural and part of the way they are wired, I don’t always like Jamie when she does this. So many times in the past, there were videos of them playing together, I almost felt they were besties. Has Jamie been spotted playing with anyone lately? Seems like it’s been a while.
As bad as I felt for the fabulous Ms Fox, check out the way she looked, crouching down, arms squared out, taking up space. Such a strange position; she looked like she was ready to launch!
I saw Jamie sitting in the raceway not so much as a “cold shoulder’ as a way of stubbornly preventing Foxie from coming back in. Good on Bubba for staying in the raceway between them. Our boy turned into a fine man.
Was that Negra’s pant hoot putting an end to the matter?
Oh, these wise drama kings and queens! They would probably die of boredome if they didn’t have these regular rites of altercation-sulking-reconciliation. We still have a lot to learn from them. We humans have made so enormous efforts to suppress our own aggressive tendencies that just watching others in a conflict makes us distressed and tense instead of accepting our very nature and focusing much more of the final act of this rite. :green_heart::monkey_face::cow2:
Oh poor Foxiefox, what on earth had she done to get Jamie all angry with her.
It must be so upsetting to get the anger over you from some one your thought of as your bestie.
And she was very upset, I have not heard her cry like that before.
Good on Burrito for being there for her.
And Ms. Missy is quite the politician, isn’t she?
And Ms. Missy is quite the politician, isn’t she?
JB – Assuming Jamie passes first, who would be more likely to become the alpha, Missy or Bubba?
I’m not sure there would be a clear alpha in that case. There are groups with more than one leader, and there are groups with no leaders (which are usually pretty unstable).
Thanks for the clarification, JB. I guess it will be interesting to see what happens, if and when it does.
I know we humans tend to
anthropomorphize, (I think we can’t help it) but we must remember that Jamie is a Chimp, and has Chimp reasons for doing what does.
And by the way, it seems to be working for them all.:revolving_hearts:
that final scene up on the hill was stunning!