[Diurnal activity pattern and seasonal variations of captive Papio hamadryas.]

Activity rhythms and time budgets are two important components of ecological influences on animal individual behaviors. We collected data on activity pattern using instantaneous scan sampling on captive hamadryas baboons (Papio hamadryas) in Hangzhou Wild Animal Zoo in Zhejiang, China from November 2012 to October 2013. The results showed that: 1) In the activity time allocation, the main activities (frequency percentage was more than or equal to 5%) included resting (42.5%), traveling (16.2%), playing (10.0%), feeding (9.8%), grooming (9.4%) and watching (7.3%), and the secondary activities (frequency percentage is lower than 5%) only accounted for a total of 4.8%. 2) Due to increasing in the feeding and watching time, and decreasing in the playing and grooming time in winter, their time budgets showed significant seasonal variation, but the resting and swimming time had no significant difference between the cold season and the warm season. 3) The diurnal activity rhythms of P. hamadryas showed two feeding peaks of morning and afternoon, and as the temperature gradually turned cold, feeding activity gradually increased with three feeding peaks, which might be a strategy of complementary energy against the cold season. 4) P. hamadryas only had a midday resting and grooming peak with multi peaks of traveling and playing in the warm season, and the swimming, playing and watching time rhythm had not obvious difference between the cold winter and the warm season, but there were multi peaks of resting in the cold winter. Therefore, their diurnal activity rhythm was not the same as other many primates (such as Nomascus nasutus, Propithecus verreauxi and Lagothrix sp.), the captive P. hamadryas in winter in Hangzhou area took a strategy of feeding for supplement energy to withstand cold rather than resting to reduce energy consumption. In short, Papio hamadryas reflects obvious rhythm with seasonal differences, which may be an adaptation to the influence of food and temperature changes in captivity.