"New research reveals that monkey cops help keep social groups in line.
Not having guns or nightsticks, they leverage their group seniority, craft intimidating reputations and count on good voter turnout.
Take the primate police out of a group, as researchers did, and the rest get more violent and aggressive. Interaction between cliques drops significantly.
Once elected, police monkeys earn certain rights and responsibilities, one of which is to peacefully settles conflicts. They usually do this by stepping between combatants or chasing bad monkeys away. Very rarely do they need to dish out a whooping, but their actions are always respected by the group.
When Krakauer and his colleagues removed the police force — which in this case consisted of three males, but can also include females — they saw a drastic change in a once peaceful, interactive society.
The creatures split into cliques, mostly based on tight family relationships or friendships, and then interacted about as well as high school jocks and band geeks."
And the moral of the story...we need a better police force.
_________________ Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears.
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