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Young Vervet Monkeys Did Not Simply Inherit Their Mothers’ Social Rank

Female vervet monkey nursing her young in Kruger National Park
Research · Behaviour

A 2026 study in South Africa of three large groups of wild vervet monkeys (Chlorocebus pygerythrus) found that juveniles did not simply inherit a fixed social position from their mothers. Maternal rank still influenced development, but young monkeys also appeared to build their own status through interactions with other group members.

In many cercopithecine monkeys — a group that includes vervets, macaques and baboons — daughters tend to settle close to their mothers in the female dominance hierarchy. One proposed explanation is that mothers help their offspring directly during aggressive encounters or indirectly by staying close enough to influence how other animals respond to them. The new study examined how these processes developed in juvenile vervets.

Mothers were rarely nearby and never joined juvenile conflicts

The researchers found strong evidence against a simple model in which mothers actively secured their offspring’s position during conflicts. Mothers were rarely nearby when juvenile aggressive encounters began and were never recorded joining those encounters as coalition partners in support of their offspring.

Maternal rank still shaped where juveniles ended up

Maternal rank nevertheless remained important. Juveniles born to high-ranking mothers tended to acquire positions that corresponded relatively closely to their mothers’ rank. Youngsters of lower-ranking mothers, however, often rose above the position their maternal background alone would predict and surpassed their mothers’ own rank.

Aggressive behaviour also changed as the juveniles matured. Juvenile aggression increased with age and was shaped by both sex and maternal rank. Males and females followed different developmental trajectories, particularly depending on the rank of their mothers.

The authors therefore describe rank acquisition as a developmental process rather than passive inheritance. A mother’s social position forms part of the social environment in which a young vervet develops, but the juvenile’s own interactions also matter. In this view, young monkeys progressively negotiate their position within the group instead of simply receiving a predetermined place in the hierarchy.

Sources and image credit

  1. Vilette, C., Nord, C. M., Bonnell, T. R., Dostie, M. J., McFarland, R., Young, C., Henzi, S. P., & Barrett, L. (2026). Social status as a developmental process in wild vervet monkeys: Beyond maternal inheritance. Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology, 80(3), 35. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00265-026-03713-9

Image: Bernard DUPONT — female vervet monkey nursing her young north of Lower Sabie, Kruger National Park, South Africa; representative mother–offspring image, not from the study. Source: Wikimedia Commons. · CC BY-SA 2.0 · Source

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