We investigated whether monkeys discriminate the sex of individuals from their pictures. Whole-body pictures of adult and
nonadult monkeys were used as stimuli. Two male Japanese monkeys were trained for a two-choice sex categorization task in
which each of two choice pictures were assigned to male and female, respectively. Following the training, the monkeys were
presented with novel monkey pictures, and whether they had acquired the categorization task was tested. The results suggested
that while monkeys discriminate between the pictures of adult males and females, discrimination of nonadult pictures was difficult.
Partial presentations of the pictures showed that conspicuous and sexually characteristic parts (i.e., underbellies including
male scrotums or breasts including female nipples) played an important role in the sex categorization.
Keywords Japanese macaque - Sex categorization - Conspecific picture - Operant conditioning