Stephanie N Braccini

Birmingham Zoo, Birmingham, AL

While all-male groups have been observed sparingly in wild western lowland gorilla (Gorilla gorilla gorilla) populations, these groups are often transient and temporary. The maintenance of bachelor groups in zoo settings maximizes social opportunities, but also presents a number of unique management challenges and concerns. Of particular concern is...

Western lowland gorillas (Gorilla gorilla gorilla) in zoos are housed in family or bachelor groups to maximize social opportunities. While wild bachelor groups are transient, all-male groups in zoos may be maintained for many years. Captive bachelor groups need to be carefully monitored, particularly during periods of demographic transition, due to...

Wild African elephants are voracious eaters, consuming 180 g of food per minute. One of their methods for eating at this speed is to sweep food into a pile and then pick it up. In this combined experimental and theoretical study, we elucidate the elephant's unique method of picking up a pile of food by compressing it with its trunk. To grab the sma...

In order to maximize social opportunities, western lowland gorillas (Gorilla gorilla gorilla) in zoos are housed in family or bachelor groups. While wild bachelor groups are transient, all-male groups in zoos may be maintained for many years. These groups should be carefully monitored, as keeping multiple males of different ages classes together, p...

In order to maximize social opportunities, western lowland gorillas (Gorilla gorilla gorilla) in zoos are housed in family or bachelor groups. While wild bachelor groups are transient, all-male groups in zoos may be maintained for many years. These groups should be carefully monitored, as keeping multiple males of different ages classes together, p...

We review evidence for and against lateralization of manual control, communication, visual processing, and auditory processing in nonhuman primates. Compared to humans and some other vertebrate species, manual specialization in nonhuman primates is relatively weak. A right-bias in chimpanzees may exist, but is so weak that many studies using simple...

Over the last century, the issue of brain lateralization in primates has been extensively investigated and debated, yet no previous study has reported eye preference in great apes. This study examined eye preference in 45 captive chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes) in response to various stimuli. Eye preference was assessed when animals looked through a...

Holly is a young adult female chimpanzee (Pan troglodytes) at the Saint Louis Zoo who was identified with sensory integration and processing difficulties in 2009. At that time, she was conspicuous in range and frequency of stereotypies, restricted social interactions, lack of rest times and poor occupational performance in routine activities. Holly...

This poster describes the efforts of a multi-disciplinary team to identify and address sensory integration problems in a captive chimpanzee with problems in social relations with her peer group, occupational performance, and participation. Resulting applications of SI theory and OT practice in multiple zoological settings will be discussed.

The degree to which non-human primate behavior is lateralized, at either individual or population levels, remains controversial. We investigated the relationship between hand preference and posture during tool use in chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes) during bipedal tool use. We experimentally induced tool use in a supported bipedal posture, an unsuppor...

In chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes) and common marmosets (Callithrix jacchus), left-handed individuals are less likely than right-handed individuals to explore new objects and situations, suggesting a relationship between the hemispheric specialization of emotional states and motor function. To further explore this relationship and to test the hypothe...

Studies of great apes have revealed that they use manual gestures and other signals to communicate about distal objects. There is also evidence that chimpanzees modify the types of communicative signals they use depending on the attentional state of a human communicative partner. The majority of previous studies have involved chimpanzees requesting...

We assessed the relationship between grip preference and hand use in chimpanzees in 2 experiments. In experiment 1, we evaluated consistency in hand use and grip preference across 4 food types. The chimpanzees showed population-level right-handedness and there are significant positive associations for both hand and grip use across food types. In ex...

The purpose of this study was to evaluate the reliability of previously published findings on hand preferences in chimpanzees by evaluating hand use in a second colony of captive chimpanzees. We assessed hand preferences for a coordinated bimanual task in 116 chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes) at the University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center and...