A recent study discovered that the thieves of the Uluwatu temple in Bali learned to judge the most value objects for tourists, which they steal and then exchange them for food as a rescue payment.

These primates prefer to point to articles that humans are more likely to exchange for food, such as electronic products, instead of objects that do not care less, such as hair buckles or scarves, said Dr. Jean-Baptiste Leca,Associate Professor of Psychology of the Department of the University of Lethbridge, in Canada, and main author of the study.

Mobile phones, wallets and glasses are among the high value possessions that monkeys intend to steal."These monkeys have become experts to snatch them from distracted tourists who did not listen.

To get to these conclusions the researcher spent more than 273 days filming the interactions between the monkeys and tourists visiting the temple.Thanks to this they realized that animals demanded greater rewards, such as more food, to return the most value articles.

Negotiations between a thief monkey, a tourist and a temple staff usually lasts several minutes.The longest wait for a rescue to be accepted and the returned object was 25 minutes, including about 17 negotiation.When the stolen article was of less value, it was more likely that the monkeys successfully concluded the barter sessions accepting a minor reward.

Unlike many previous studies that have examined similar behaviors, Uluwatu monkeys, a Hindu temple, are animals that are raised in freedom and were not observed in a laboratory.

Primates learn these behaviors during youth, up to four years of age, according to the investigation, which was funded by the Natural Sciences and Engineering Council of Canada (NSERC) and the Research Institute of the Alberta game (AGRI)and published.In Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society.

Stole and barter is an expression of cultural intelligence by the monkeys, Leca said."These behaviors are learned socially and have been maintained throughout monkeys for at least 30 years in this population".