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[Michaelangelica]

Fragrance and perfume is such an interesting sense


http://www.world-science.net/exclusi...me-monkeys.htm

"Long before it's in the papers"
November 18, 2006

Monkeys using perfume? Study investigates

Nov. 17, 2006
Special to World Science

Move over Ralph Lauren, Dolce & Gabbana and other purveyors of glamor perfumes.
The next rage in fragrance may be Eau de spider monkey.

Scientists have been reporting sightings of wild spider monkeys rubbing themselves with chewed-up leaves that may function as perfumes. Although it’s unproven that they do it specifically to take on an aroma, mounting evidence points that way, the investi*gators say.

Black-handed spider monkey (courtesy rainforestanimals.com)
The scents “may play a role in the context of social communication, possibly for sinal ing of social status or to increase sexual attractiveness,” scientists wrote in the Nov. 14 ad*vance online issue of the research jounal Primates.

In the report, Matthias Laska and colleagues of the University of Munich Medical School in Germany described watching a group of 10 free-ranging black-hand*ed spider monkeys for a total of 250 hours.

The species, formally named Ateles geoffroyi, is one of four species of spider monkeys—small, acrobatic primates that fling themselves among treetops and live between southern Brazil and central Mexico.