Gecker

Geckering has been commonly associated with infant rhesus macaques, like this one.

A gecker is a vocalization most often associated with baby primates. Common in rhesus macaques,^[1] geckering is also associated with fearful jackals and mongooses.^[2] Patas monkeys have also been observed to gecker.^[3] In 1965, Irven DeVore of the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences described geckering as a "single sharp yak sound", which may be repeated.^[4] It has also been characterized as "cackling."^[2] In macaques, geckering is associated with spastic jerking of the body.^[5] Among macaques, the behavior was found to be most common in infants of two to four months (35%) with younger infants following (26%), but was recorded in macaques up to 41 months old.^[1]

The vocalization is frequently reported as a distress cry.^[1] A 1974 study questioned this conclusion; it found that geckering seemed to be a spontaneous occurrence among infant macaques in many different situations and that older infants, who geckered far less frequently, exhibited different behaviors in situations where they were plainly fearful.^[5] A four-year study of geckering reported in 2004 found that the vocalizations most often occurred either for no obvious reason when the infant was with its mother (31.1%) or as the mother was physically moving away from the infant (13.5%). In 49% of cases, the mother paid attention to or renewed contact with the geckering infant, which led the studiers to suggest that the purpose of geckering was to call for maternal attention.^[1]

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