How to decode the vocal expression of emotions of the Neotropical social carnivore ring-tailed coati (Nasua nasua)?

I am thrilled to talk about the long-term ring-tailed coatis’ study to you. Please follow the updates at Twitter and Research Gate.
In Brazil, you will find the ring-tailed coatis chirping in the woods. This Neotropical species has recently risen interests regarding social behaviour, acoustic communication and nesting building behaviour. Due to the behavioural plasticity and admirable curiosity of the ring-tailed coatis, they can live close to human settlements and be conditioned not only to eat anthropogenic food but, guess what, to anoint themselves with laundry products also. That is what Profs. Patrícia Monticelli (University of Sao Paulo, Brazil), Andrés Perez Acosta (Universidad del Rosario, Colombia) and I found out after studying a coati population living on Campeche Island in the South of Brazil.
Brazilian primatologists have already recorded anointing behaviour among the capuchin monkeys with citrus fruits, ants and arachnids. Nevertheless, the discovery of the anointing behaviour in coatis tells us that it is not exclusive of primates. In the case of the coati species, Dr Matthew Gompper first recorded the white-nosed coati Nasua narica fur-rubbing with resin of the tree Trattinnickia aspera during grooming in 1993. As far as we know, we contributed with the first scientific documentation of a South American social carnivore, the Nasua nasua, exhibiting the behaviour of anointing (Figure 1).

In the behavioural repertoire of the ring-tailed coatis, you can expect to see the behaviours of grooming and (cleansing itself) (Figure 2 and Figure 3) and allogrooming (parasite removal from each other group member) (Figure 2 and Figure 4). Not only serving for cleansing but grooming strengths social bonds among group members too. When such contexts were observed on the island, the sharing of the soap foaming characterised social anointing (Figure 5) while individually anointing herself or himself was self-anointing (Figure 5). With personal communications from other Brazilian researchers, we learned ring-tailed coatis can also anoint themselves with plant resin, invertebrate and feces. They are social carnivores seemly anointing with soap and plant exudates to alleviate discomfort of parasitic illness.

The welfare of the ring-tailed coatis is still poorly addressed in Brazil; and they mostly grab the attention towards the human-coati conflicts. There are a growing number of anecdotal reports about coatis anointing with introduced human products for cleanse throughout the country. This newly found ring-tailed coati’s anointing behaviour with non-natural substances became evident because of human interference by indirectly presenting cleaning products to them. Alternatively, the possible absence of plants with analgesic properties on the island apparently motivated coatis to shift from anointing with natural stuff from the forest to anthropogenic toxic products. That concerns us because it seems the human-coati relationship is negatively impacting the coati’s welfare far more than we might predict. For this reason, it is necessary to develop ethological and health indicators to practice welfare assessment of the coatis living in forests close to human settlements.

[caption id="attachment_4131" align="alignright" width="1024"] Figure 6a - Some of the acoustic repertoire of ring-tailed coatis[/caption]

[caption id="attachment_4132" align="alignleft" width="1024"] Figure 6b - Further elements of the acoustic repertoire of the ring-tailed coatis[/caption]

Since we described the acoustic repertoire of the ring-tailed coatis (Figure 6), we are now interested in the affective states of the individuals performing anointing behavior, and in recording the utterances in positive and negative contexts to further acoustic analysing. Moreover, we can model the way ring-tailed coatis perceive and interact with their environment through the acoustic communication channel by applying the source-filter theory to their vocalizations. This theory states that the mammal vocalizations result from a source (the larynx) combined with a filter (the vocal tract), which emphasizes vocal frequencies (formants). Additionally, this theory reliably predicts and identifies the relevant emotion-related acoustic parameters. Then, to decode the vocal expression of emotions, we can analyze the recordings of affiliative, agonistic and distress vocalizations (Figure 6) of the free-ranging coatis gathered during the sessions of anointing behavior with human-introduced products.

I am thankful for the continuous support of the behavior scientists Patrícia F Monticelli | Andrés M. Pérez-Acosta | Michael Alan Huffman | Elena Volodina and Ilya Volodin | Elizabete Marques de Jesus Costa and the system analyst scientist Humberto Fioravante Ferro. We all enjoy contributing to the growth of awareness around the marvelous anointing behavior and communicative life of the coatis (Figure 7).

List of links attached to the text
Studying a coati population living on Campeche Island in the South of Brazil
Brazilian primatologists have already recorded anointing behaviour among the capuchin monkeys with citrus fruits, ants and arachnids
Nasua narica fur-rubbing with resin of the tree Trattinnickia aspera
The acoustic repertoire of the ring-tailed coatis
The study of the affective states of the individuals performing anointing behaviour