Monkeys also do kidnapping! When bored, in 15 months, 11 children of the second Prajati stole- show it in the video …

Monkeys Kidnap Babies of Another Species: What do you do if you are bored? You may start watching movies, start humming the song or scrolling on Instagram. But Capuchins monkeys are not doing this. A new trend is gaining momentum between the bored young male monkeys of this species- they are kidnapping young children of second species, houler monkeys. Scientists say that for the first time animals have been recorded in the video stealing young children of another species without any clear reason.

The PhD student, who first saw something wrong or separated while scrutinizing the footage captured in a motion-trigger cameras on a island of Jikaran, who was away from the coast of Panama in 2022, in 2022.

Who is a researcher of Max Planck Institute of Animal Behavior in Goldsboro Germany. He told the news agency AFP, “I was very surprised to see a white -faced capuchin monkey with a hooler monkey’s baby on my back”. Scientists named Capuchin as ‘Joker’ as it had a small bruise on the edge of the mouth which reminded him of the villain of the film series “Batman”.

After more footage carefully, he saw the ‘Joker’ carrying four different Houler monkey children. Goldsboro, the lead writer of a new study in the Current Biology Journal, said, “First, he thought that it was” the heart touching story of a strange capuchin who adopted these babies “. But then scientists started searching for other matters related to ‘Joker’. Finally, he came to know that it was not just ‘clown’. He saw five capuchin monkeys carrying 11 different Houler monkey infants over a period of 15 months.

The Howler-Carrying Behavior is Baffling: There’s no clear benefit to the capuchin carriers. They don’t prey on the infants, do’t play with them, and do’t receive more (positive) Attention from Group Mates While Carrying (7/12) pic.twitter.com/hgkfr6ahpb

– ecology of animal societies (@livingingroups) May 19, 2025

Then the team found footage of Houler Monkey Parents who were screaming to their lost children, which shows that infants were actually kidnapped.

Deadly ‘hobby’

The scientists doing research were surprised because Capuchin did not eat the kidnapped children nor hunt them. It is not that he used to enjoy playing with them. Goldsboro said that he eventually realized that it was a social tradition or “craze” among the young male capuchin monkeys of the Kidnaping Island.

Study co-author Brandon Barrett told AFP that this is the first time that a species has been seen repeatedly kidnapping other infants due to the spread of such tradition. But this craze also brought bad news with him. Four out of 11 were seen to have killed the death of infants, but researchers believe that none of them survived.

In fact, how Capuchin manages to kidnap those babies monkeys remains a mystery. It is likely that the kidnapping occurs on the trees, and the cameras installed by the scientists only cover the land in the Koiba National Park of the island.

Goldsboro said, “They (Capuchin monkeys) are very successful in this, as it seems that they are also capable of rescuing a one or two -day baby from his mother.” The special thing is that the huler monkeys whose children are stealing the children, their adults (understand the father of the children) are three times larger in size than the capuchin monkeys. Despite this, capuchin children are stealing and they do not get hurt.

Such cultural craze spread among animals is rare but not unheard. Barrett had previously studied Capuchins in Costa Rica, which started raising Sahi (Portupine). But then they got bored of it. In the 1980s, the killers started placing dead salmon on their heads on the north-western American coast.

This trend came back decades later when Orkas was seen wearing this “salmon hat” again last year.

These capuchin monkeys create a ruckus

Scientists started recording Capuchin in 2017 as they efficiently use stone tools to break nuts and shellfish. Capuchin does not do any hunter and there is a lot of food on the island, which gives them a lot of free time to roam around.

Barrett said, “He is a small investigative agent of anarchy.”

It is now believed that in these free time, he is doing arbitrary work to steal the children of Houler monkeys. The study included only the kidnapping recorded till July 2023, but Goldsboro said that at least one more child has been taken since then, although he has not seen all the footage.

The decrease in kidnapping must have come only because Capuchin has now reduced the children to steal. Houler monkeys of this island are classified as endangered. Researchers also want to study whether the normally humble -looking Houler monkeys will now be more frightened – or aggressive – to be more frightened towards the monkeys.