The main research focus of the Department of Cognitive Ethology is the evolution of cognition, communication, and social behavior. We investigate the selective pressures and evolutionary constraints that influence social behavior and explore the cognitive abilities of baboons and macaques. Since the phylogenetic history and ecology of the respective species represent fundamental factors in the evolution of communication and social behavior, elucidating the phylogenetic relationships plays an important role in our work.
We place a particular emphasis on researching free-living Guinea baboons at the DPZ field station CRP Simenti in Senegal, which we established in 2007. We operate the world's only long-term project on the behavior and ecology of this species. Our study thus makes a significant contribution to collecting and analyzing the diversity of baboon social systems. In parallel, we investigate the cognitive foundations of these animals at the Nuremberg Zoo.
The department is headed by Prof. Julia Fischer, who also holds a professorship for Primate Cognition at the Georg-August-University Göttingen.
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Ludwig Ehrenreich ![[Translate to Englisch:]](/fileadmin/_processed_/e/d/csm_csm_2011_Javaneraffe_Saeckl_df62ae98ff_b0865fe920.jpg "[Translate to Englisch:]")