Wound healing in wild male baboons: Estimating healing time from wound size.

ABSTRACT: Wound healing in animals is important to minimize the fitness costs of infection. Logically, a longer healing time is associated with higher risk of infection and higher energy loss. In wild mammals, wounds caused by aggressive intraspecific interactions can potentially have lethal repercussions. Clarifying wounding rate and healing time is therefore important for measuring the severity of the attacks. In addition, impact of secondary damage of wounds (e.g., accidental peeling off of scabs) on heeling time is unknown despite the risk of infection in wild mammals. In baboons, most male injuries have been reported to result from male to male fights. Here, we investigated the relationship between wound size and healing time in wild anubis baboons to clarify the healing cost of physical attack

SUBMITTER: Taniguchi H 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6177146 | biostudies-literature | 2018

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature