Swear area

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As Schimpf area or insult zone is called in the behavioral biology areas a territorial boundary , which are frequented by animals to threatening behavior to show towards its neighbors. If disputes arise between the neighbors, they do not take place equally frequently at all points on the territorial border, but concentrate on a few places that are usually easily visible from both sides or other criteria, depending on the species, are suitable for carrying out the threatening behavior. If the scolding remains , these areas will not be left by the defending animals.

Swear areas are used to assess the strength of the respective opponent or the resistance to be expected in the event of more serious turf wars that may follow . For example, they are visited by sedentary birds, which always appear in the same places at certain times to sing against their territorial opponents. The lure singing, however, does not take place in swear areas.

However, the term is mostly used for group-forming primates , whose territories, as with chimpanzees, are often limited by natural barriers (rocks, rivers, forest borders, slopes, etc.). Only in those places where there are no natural barriers do the territories of the groups border one another. It is there that areas where cursed abuse occur, which both groups visit at the same time and very regularly. The groups are far apart and show their species-specific threatening behavior. There is a so-called no man's land between the swear areas , which is not used by either party to search for food. These are mostly terrain strips.

If there are less or less cursing individuals on one side during the cursing times, the cursing area is increasingly shifted by the stronger party to the territory of the inferior group. Primates in particular avoid serious fights with the defeated party through this gradual expansion of their territories, which is fighting for its existence and would therefore defend itself more strongly in serious fights than the superior group could cope with.

Fold areas are not used by all territorial animals. Lions mark their area with scented marks and if there are fights, the locations are usually arbitrary and result from coincidental encounters. In primates, visual contact is an essential feature of the swear area. Species that only distinguish themselves acoustically from their neighboring groups, such as the howler monkeys that live in the dense tropical rainforest , do not set up swear areas, but rather perform this behavior in less strictly localized places, preferably in the sleeping and resting places in the branches. The far-reaching calls make visual contact superfluous.