Small vertebrate consumption by capuchin monkeys (Sapajus libidinosus): Insights into the human predatory pattern

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The consumption of small vertebrates occurs to varying degrees among many non-human primates. This dietary element may have constituted an important source of nutrition for early hominins, particularly during periods of food scarcity, providing a stepping stone to the exploitation of larger animals. Capuchin monkeys regularly consume small vertebrates across their range. Expanding our knowledge of the contribution of animal matter to these primates' diets can shed light on the proximate and ultimate drivers of small vertebrate consumption across primate taxa, including humans. We report on the most extensive record of bearded capuchin (Sapajus libidinosus) vertebrate predation so far available: 45 months of observations of vertebrate predation in two sympatric groups in Fazenda Boa Vista, in northeastern Brazil. We estimated the effect of provisioning, sex, age class, fruit and insect availability, rainfall, humidity, and temperature on predation rates using a zero-inflated negative binomial algorithm with random effects. We found mammal and saurian consumption is habitual in this population of S. libidinosus. Prey brains and viscera tend to be accessed before the rest of the body. Predation rates were higher in males compared to females and in adults compared to infants across groups. Our results also identified small vertebrates as key energy sources for bearded capuchins under decreased fruit availability and show that provisioning reduces predation rates. Future work should assess small vertebrate predation as a possible stepping stone in the emergence of human exploitation of large animals by re-analyzing fossil faunal assemblages for evidence of small vertebrate predation.