Dylan Bettencourt
A day in the life of any monkey can be stressful but Indonesian monkeys have found a way to relax. They use stones as sex toys.
While a research team was studying 173 long-tailed macaques, the researchers observed the animals using stones to rub on their genital and groin area, according to a paper published in the journal Ethology.
The researchers found young males were more likely than older males to use the stones for pleasure.
They also found that actions with the stone were linked to other sexual actions such as mounting.
The team confirmed that the data gathered supports the theory that the actions with the stones are “sexually motivated”.
The report added that the monkeys were performing “a form of self-directed, tool-assisted masturbation”, Camilla Cenni, a PhD student at the University of Lethbridge in Canada and author of the study, told The New York Times.
The researchers suggested that monkeys over time may continue to use tools for aspects other than just survival, shown by those in Indonesia.
Animals using tools is not an entirely new concept. Otters are known to use stones to crack open shells for food such as clams and mussels.
Dolphins have been shown to use sea sponges to kick up sand to uncover prey on the seabed.
But the majority of the time, animals use the tools they find for survival purposes and not for pleasure.
The authors of the study noted that the monkeys they studied had access to human food, which meant they spent less time looking for something to eat.
That indirectly confirmed that the use of stones for pleasure may have stemmed from boredom or the freedom of spare time. Image source: @WikimediaCommons
