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http://www.nature.com/nsu/031027/031027-13.html

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Risky diddling bonds baboons
Male apes share intense greetings only with close friends.
3 November 2003

JOHN WHITFIELD

Baboons demonstrate and test the strength of their relationship.

Want to show someone you really like them? Slap them in the face.

That, at least, seems to be the message of baboon salutations. The 
closer the social bond between two animals, the more intrusive and 
risky the greeting when they meet. For male Guinea baboons (Papio 
papio), this involves ritualized fiddling with each other's genitals.

Baboons impose on each other to demonstrate and test the strength of 
their relationship, says Jessica Whitham of the University of Chicago. 
The hazards involved in such intimacy mean that only truly trusting 
apes will get up close and personal, she says.

"Male baboons have a high potential for aggression. One bite to the 
genitalia with sharp canines can effectively end a male's mating 
career," says Whitham. She and her colleagues spent nearly 200 hours 
over six months watching a colony of captive baboons at Chicago's 
Brookfield Zoo.

Penis and scrotum diddling is the culmination of a complex greeting 
ritual that begins with face pulling and progresses through rump 
presentation and embracing.

The baboons that were more likely to embrace or exchange diddles also 
spent a lot of time together, and groomed one another frequently1. 
Aggressive interactions led to frostier greetings.

Genital fiddling is unique to guinea baboons, but other primates invade 
each other's space in similarly challenging ways. White-faced capuchin 
monkeys, for example, stick their fingers up each other's noses in 
greeting.

But we shouldn't look for a human equivalent, says Whitham: "Most human 
greetings do not carry the same potential costs as those exchanged 
between adult male baboons."
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-f