Hive monkeys

Hive Monkeys are a misleading term, sometimes applied to literally all of Antarctica's primates, but technically representing only the largest and most socially complex genus.

The true Hive Monkey is a large short tailed primate with long silky fur on limbs and back, weighing on average 40 pounds, though large females can reach 60 pounds. However, the term has been loosely applied to almost all Antarctic species, down to specimens which can fit in a hand.

Descended from south American primates who migrated just prior to the split between the Antarctic and South American continents, the Antarctic primates are, with the exception of man, the most seasonally adapted primates ever.

These adaptations include seasonal fur coats, nocturnal adaptations, and other refinements. The most famous adaptation has been their social lifestyle.

All Antarctic monkeys, from the relatively tiny scavengers and squirrels, bandits and cheaters, to the robust gatherers and hives, must cope with the long winter night. To do this, they all build elaborate nests to protect themselves from the elements, and like European and American squirrels and chipmunks, stock their nests with surplus of food gathered through the summer, mostly nuts and seeds, but including leaves, roots, fruits and berries, insects, shiny baubles, small animals, etc.

There are many variations. Some monkeys will build a series of nests and spend the winter moving from nest to nest. Others will cache or store food at locations other than nests. Some hoard late in the summer, others hoard early, and still others exhibit quite complex seasonality.

Most monkeys are social to some degree and even for the smaller species, nests will contain at least a family group. There are interlocking networks of nests among troops, and occasionally 'civil wars' as starvation impels the members of a troop to evict their weaker brethren. The largest and most impressive nests may be the size of a human building and contain a hundred or more individuals.

Some have suggested that Antarctic monkeys, along with naked mole rats, are among the only truly colonial vertebrates. This is not accurate. Antarctic monkeys are not colonial animals, at least not in the sense of ants, bees and naked mole rats.

Rather, they are social animals along the lines of beavers or prairie dogs or baboon troops. Typically, Antarctic monkey societies are organized around dominant females who initiate elaborate nest building in order to attract male harems. The males who congregate or gather contribute to the nests and help collect food. Daughters typically remain, and subordinate females will join, increasing the number of females in a hive and drawing more males. Hives or troops are almost always exclusively matrilinial with males spending the early part of the summer moving about freely.

It has been speculated by some Anthropologists that the Hive monkeys seasonal lifestyle, social nest complexes and hoarding traits were adopted by Tsalal society. This is on the whole, unlikely. The early Tsalal did not need monkeys to point out to them the extreme paucity of available food sources on lands during the winters. Nor did they need monkeys to educate them on the necessity of shelter during 40 below blizzards, or the need to hoard foods for the winter. Those who survived were going to figure all this out for themselves.

Nevertheless, there's clear evidence of a very early association between humans and hive monkeys, if for nothing else than early humans despoiling Hive Monkey colonies for their own survival, and sometimes dying in the attempt. The two species were often found in loose association, and over time, several species of Antarctic primate became domesticates, gathering their surpluses for human masters. Indeed, it appears that domestication of Hive Monkeys precedes the development of Agriculture in Antarctica. Arguably, in particularly resource poor regions, domestication of Hive monkeys and related species allowed humans to survive in resource poor environments. There are, of course, more unsavoury aspects to the relationship.

Hive Monkeys and their kin were among Antarctica's most famous exports in the late 19th and 20th centuries, as domesticated monkey colonies were employed in many areas, including a specially bred strain in the American south, employing their gathering and hoarding traits in commercial agriculture.

Unfortunately, many of these ventures were poorly managed, resulting in large populations of feral animals which have disrupted local ecologies throughout the world. Replacement by mechanized farming displaced still more animals, with many being slaughtered, but more escaping into the wild.

Today, Hive Monkeys remain a minor but critical fixture in modern agriculture, and an unresolved ecological problem, symbolizing the two edge sword which is the Antarctic interchange.

Jared Diamond, Invasion, pp 392