A routine emerges for our Trio of monkeys

Here is a second installment from Sylvain on our trio's adventures in the forest:

"Their days are divided in several parts with a time allocated to foraging and feeding activities between 6 and about 10 to 11 am. The two females, Nko (pictured below foraging on the forest floor) and Bebe spend this time foraging for arthropods on leaves and widely dispersed fruits from vines, climbers and small trees from the understorey, while the male remains in the high crown, which often is bearing a lot of high energy fruits. This strategic position in the top of the forest is likely vigilance and territorial behaviour, and seems to allow him to look at the surroundings for specific fruiting trees, and possibly for potential intruders or even predators. The latter part of the morning and the early afternoon are spent in all together in the lower layers. They are much closer together during this time, and spend a long time on social grooming and resting in sunny open places, especially by the July and Nko, while the youngest female, Bebe, continues to forage, mostly on insects close by. From 2 to 5 pm, the females start to move again in the lower canopy where there are many lianas, while July stands resting and looking around in higher positions. The females move slowly in this forest strata, their movements mostly determined by their foraging activity. A second resting and socializing session is often observed around 4 pm, and now Bebe is also included. The late evening is devoted to fast movements in the emergent trees of the forest by all 3 members of the group, accompanied by foraging and storage of fruits into the cheek pouches. They usually stop moving around 6 pm after the sun sets on upper larger branches of emergent trees.

These first weeks in their new place show an encouraging pattern of how the monas adjust to their new environmental and social pressures. They have already met other primates species (putty-nose (Cercopithecus nictitans) and red-eared (Cercopithecus erythrotis) guenons). This included mixed-species groups, putty-nose all-male groups and a solitary red-eared male. Theses interactions so far have been mainly territorial - loud hack calls and display by the males of each group once visual contact has been established. On only one occasion have they been observed interacting with other primates: a solitary male red-eared was observed very close to the monas, eating on fruits that they had foraged on earlier. July, the large male leader of our trio, was observed chasing this male from fruiting crown twice, until the latter flees out of sight.
And finally, last but not least an exciting observation-- mating between July and the youngest female, Bebi. We really look forward to knowing if this group is able to breed and then increase the group size, genetic pool and social links between the individuals.
To conclude, although all these described patterns are for the moment anecdotal and general observations, as it is to early to assess any kind of statistically significant trends and patterns, it presents a motivating and encouraging picture of the adaptation and/or acclimatization of the released group to their reintroduction in a natural habitat."