Study: Rare monkeys share nursing duty
By Wang Keju in Beijing and Zhou Lihua in Wuhan | China Daily | Updated: 2019-03-30 07:01
While many human mothers pay big money for nannies to take care of their children, female golden snub-nosed monkeys are happy to mother each other's offspring, according to a new study by Chinese scientists.
What's more, the practice has effectively saved the species from extinction, according to the study recently published in the journal Science Advances.
Nearly 90 percent of golden snub-nosed monkey infants evaluated over five years in Shennongjia National Park in Hubei province were nursed by their biological mothers and other females, usually relatives of the biological mothers such as grandmothers or aunts.
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