Social Behavior of Macaca Fascicularis Raffles (1821) at Various Age Levels in the Banjarnegara Ex-Situ Conservation Area During Pandemic Times

Abstract

Macaca fascicularisis one of the nonhuman primates that live in groups with many males and females (multi male multi female group) so that interactions between individuals often occur. Despite having a wide distribution, M. fascicularis continues to decline in population. One of the efforts to protect M. fascicularis from extinction is to provide an ex-situ conservation area. The purpose of this study was to analyze social behavior at various age levels of M. fascicularis in the Banjarnegara ex-situ conservation area. This research was conducted during the COVID-19 pandemic using the focal animal sampling method. The observation object in this research were puppies, juveniles, adult males and adult females. The results showed that the age level of puppies was dominated by affiliation behavior by 50%, The adolescent age level is dominated by grooming and playing behavior by 46.1%, while the adult age level is dominated by grooming behavior by 60.2%. The social behavior that most often appears is grooming with a frequency of 233.33 times at the adult age level and the behavior that rarely appears is agonistic behavior as much as 8.5 times at the adolescent age level. The longest duration of social behavior was found in adult grooming for 80.4 (seconds). The conclusion of this study is that the social behaviors observed during the pandemic include grooming, agonistic, sexual, affiliation and play. Most of the social behavior of M. fascicularis in ex-situ conservation areas experienced an increase in frequency compared to before the pandemic, except for agonistic behavior which decreased in frequency during the pandemic.