The Research On Copulatory Behaviors Of Golden Snub-nosed Monkeys(Rhinopithecus Roxellana) In Hubei Shennongjia National Nature Reserve, China

Research on copulatory behavior of Rhinopithecus roxellana is an series part to understand its social structure and reproductive strategy. Little was known about reproductive features of the species in Shennongjia which is the easternmost distribution of Rhinopithecus roxellana,and few report was taken on copulatory patterns of wild species nutil now. In order to find the regularity on its sexual selection and copulatory behavior of Rhinopithecus roxellana.from July 2012 to December 2012, we observed invitational behaviors of two provisioned families of Sichuan snub-nosed monkeys (Rhinopithecus roxellana) in Shennongjia National Nature Reserve, Hubei province, China. The all-occurrence sampling method and the focal animal sampling method were used to collect data on copulatory frequency and types of pre-copulatory behaviors, ejaculation and subjects were also involved. Our focal subjects include 9 females from two one-male units (OMUs) participating in the mating activity and their resident males. The total effective copulation behavior are 167,within 346h researching huors in all. Some results are listed as follows:1 females are active sponsor of courtship (86.8%). They invited copulations with "prostration and exposed rump "(75.9%) and "sitting showed the back "(24.1%). Females invite copulation with a short-lived "wuwu" sound and maintain pre-copulatory posture prostration or sit after glance at the male several times. However, the male used "wide opened mouth and gazed the female "to soliciate courtship and repeat this behavior until they give up or copulation occurs.2 When accepting the female’s solicitation or mounting directly, the male mounted the female by dorsal abdominal mating posture,. Females invite more ejaculation than male (Female80% vs Male20%), ejaculation-to-mount ratio is 8.98%, intervals of two adjacent ejaculation of one male maintain more than 1.2h. SME stand about 8.33%. Courtship related to ejaculation can be seen less than once in 24h, ejaculation may not be observed under every 12 mounts on average. Therefore, this species is a multiple mount ejaculator.3 This is the first time to report body contact which refer to solicitation of Sichuan snub-nosed monkeys in Shennongjia. It may suggest that a kind of willing to copulate no matter who use it. The male use body contact more before mating season, while female take more just in mating season. This could be a useful way for male to face the pressure from female competition, because invite copulation consume more energy, in this case, male could enlarge their ecological fitness.4 Seasonal changes occur in solicitation, mating season stay in September to December with a peak in November. Moreover, ejaculation peak was observed in November, too. Gender of whom invited bouts had little effect on copulation which related to ejaculation(χ2=0.085, df=1, P>0.05).