Concealing of facial expressions by a wild Barbary macaque (Macaca sylvanus)

Behavioural research on non-vocal communication among non-human primates and its possible links to the origin of human language is a long-standing research topic. Because human language is under voluntary control, it is of interest whether this is also true for any communicative signals of other species. It has been argued that the behaviour of hiding a facial expression with one's hand supports the idea that gestures might be under more voluntary control than facial expressions among non-human primates, and it has also been interpreted as a sign of intentionality. So far, the behaviour has only been reported twice, for single gorilla and chimpanzee individuals, both in captivity. Here, we report the first observation of concealing of facial expressions by a monkey, a Barbary macaque (Macaca sylvanus), living in the wild. On eight separate occasions between 2009 and 2011 an adult male was filmed concealing two different facial expressions associated with play and aggression ("play face" and "scream face"), 22 times in total. The videos were analysed in detail, including gaze direction, hand usage, duration, and individuals present. This male was the only individual in his group to manifest this behaviour, which always occurred in the presence of a dominant male. Several possible interpretations of the function of the behaviour are discussed. The observations in this study indicate that the gestural communication and cognitive abilities of monkeys warrant more research attention.