Coinciding with the 600^th anniversary of the University of Turin, the University’s Department of Animal and Human Biology, the Associazione Primatologica Italiana (API), and the European Federation for Primatology (EFP) proudly present the XX Congress of the International Primatological Society (IPS), Turin August 22^nd - 28^th 2004. The program includes six satellite workshops held in Rome, Tuscany, Zurich and Turin both before and after the main congress. The satellite meeting of the European Primate Veterinarians (EPV) immediately follows the congress, on August 28^th.

Elisabetta Visalberghi, Giovanna Spinozzi, Patrizia Potì and Maria Cristina Riviello have organised the pre-congress workshop entitled "Capuchins: The State of the Art,” to be held August 18^th to 22^nd in Radicondoli (Siena). IPS Council officer Claudio Valladares-Padua, IPS president Dorothy Fragaszy with the collaboration of API president Cristina Giacoma and the Department of Animal and Human Biology of Torino University, have prepared a pre-congress workshop in Turin titled "Proposal Writing in Primate Conservation” to teach young researchers from developing countries how to prepare applications for primate conservation grants.

Christopher Pryce has organised the European Marmoset Research Group 8^th Workshop on "Macaques and Marmosets in Biological and Biomedical Research" to be held  August 20^th to 21^st in Zurich, Switzerland. 

In Turin on August 28^th, a full-day satellite meeting will be dedicated to discussing the health and care of laboratory-housed marmosets during the Third Workshop of the European Primate Veterinarians. This event has been organized by Stephanie Steidler and Fanelie Wanert.

In Siena from August 28^th through 30^th, state-of-the-art reviews of key aspects of the fission-fusion organisation of various species will be discussed by participants in the workshop entitled “Fission-Fusion Societies and Cognitive Evolution”. Filippo Aureli, Cristophe Boesch, and Colleen Schaffner have organized this symposium.

In Florence on the 29^th and 30^th of August, a workshop covering “Primate Cytogenetics and Comparative Genomics" will be presented by Luca Sineo, Daniela Romagno, and Roscoe Stanyon. Attendees will examine problems that have recently emerged in the study of karyology at the cytogenetic and molecular levels.

In Rome on August 30^th, several renowned experts will lead discussion of the current knowledge of another relevant group of South American primates, the Callithricids, during the workshop entitled "Social Learning in Callitricidae: Recent Trends and Perspectives." This workshop was organised by Augusto Vitale.

During the main congress at Lingotto in Turin, 11 Plenary Lectures will be presented by world-famous primatologists. Alison Jolly (University of Sussex, UK), Jeanne Altmann (Princeton University, USA) and William Olupot (Institute of Tropical Forest Conservation, Uganda) will review data on the ecology of lemurs and baboons collected during their life-long research in the countries of Madagascar, Kenya and Uganda. Mechanisms relevant for the evolution of primate intellectual abilities will be discussed by Jeffrey Schwartz (University of Pittsburgh, USA), Elisabetta Visalberghi (CNR, Italy) and Tetsuro Matsuzawa (University of Kyoto, Japan). The origins of human non-verbal communication will be dealt with by Michael Tomasello (Max Planck Institute in Leipzig, Germany). Richard Wrangham (incoming IPS President: Harvard University, USA) and Russ Tuttle (University of Chicago, USA) will discuss the origins of primate social behaviour. The current IPS President, Dorothy Fragaszy (University of Georgia, USA), and Hilary Box (University of Reading, UK), who was recently awarded IPS’s 2004 Lifetime Award, will give an in-depth analysis of the future directions of primatology and primatologists.

In addition to the 11 invited lectures, the main program at Lingotto includes 32 symposia. All major areas of primatology are represented: new technologies to describe primate diversity (computer-assisted morphometry and cytogenetics); sensory physiology (vision, olfaction, acoustic, circadian mechanisms); cognition and intelligence (uses of technology in the study of cognition in nonhuman primates, manual functions, social learning and cognition, apes’ cognition and intelligence, artistic expressions in non-human primates); reproductive and social relationships (alternative reproductive tactics in primates, advances in the study of primate maternal behaviour, managing conflict, fission-fusion societies, socio-ecological divergence and evolution of the great apes); and taxon-centred debates (capuchins, colobine, baboon, Strepsirrhini, Lemur catta). As concerns neuroscience, particular emphasis is given to brain imaging in conscious monkeys and mirror neurons. Special attention is also paid to the implementation of trends in veterinary medicine, including the evolution, emergence, adaptation and persistence of infectious diseases; disease risk analysis (a paradigm for using health-based data to affect primate conservation); and primate-focused eco-tourism. Primate welfare in biomedical research and in zoological parks is also covered.

Apart from the symposia, the meeting includes 217 contributed oral and 124 poster presentations regarding issues relevant for the fields of genetics, biomedicine, endocrinology, reproductive biology, neuroscience, sensory physiology, communication, cognition, learning, social behaviour, sexual selection, maternal care, population demography, ecology, feeding behaviour, conservation, taxonomy, morphology and morphometry, and primate welfare.

During this congress, debate will develop not only on the usual main scientific topics centred on who or what non-human primates are, but also on issues requiring a strong interdisciplinary approach as mental ability of pre-linguistic individuals and  topics having great relevance for the community (such as International guidelines for acquisition, care and breeding of Nonhuman Primates and UNESCO’s project for Great-Ape World Heritage Species), as well as other important conservation topics in the third millennium.

Anne Zeller has organised a cutting-edge roundtable on the topic of “Artistic Expressions in Non-Human Primates”). Biologists, psychologists and artists will analyse the colourful production of gorilla, chimpanzee and orangutan to learn more about the mind of pre-linguistic individuals. They will discuss evidences that ape drawings are not random applications of colour to paper, but the result of colour preference, colour choice, the ability to mix colours, colour placement, form, line and use of space. A second point consists in the possibility  that ape signing drawings might be a kind of iconic, although not figural, representation.

Mark Leighton has organised the round table “Recent Developments of The Great Ape World Heritage Species Project” to update us on efforts made to develop international agreements establishing the great apes as the first designates as World Heritage Species (WHS) and the extension of WHS status to other primate and non-primate taxa. Over the last year, The Great Ape World Heritage Species Project, Inc., has worked closely with UNESCO staff from the World Heritage Centre to develop the scientific, legal and philo­sophical case for WHS. The legal basis for designating WHS might be established in a new Protocol to the existing World Heritage Convention in collaboration  with other international initiatives for enhancing conservation of great apes, such as GRASP (the Great Ape Survival Project, spon­sored by UNESCO & UNEP) and IGAC (the proposed International Great Ape Commission).

The last decade has seen tremendous changes to our thinking of captive care with multiple resources readily available for primate caretakers. The challenge in developing international care standards is to meet the welfare needs of captive primates that translate to all regions where they are held.  The IPS VicePresident for Captive Care and Breeding, Colleen McCann and Gemma Perretta organised  a round table on “Acquisition, Care and Breeding of Nonhuman Primates: Revisions to the IPS International Guidelines and Codes of Practice”  in order to highlight where primate care guidelines from various regions concur and where they differ.

Russell A. Mittermeier, Antony B. Rylands and Claudio V. Valladares-Pádua, on behalf of Conservation International, the IUCN/SSC Primate Specialist Group, and the Conservation Committee of the International Primatological Society, invite all IPS congress participants to the 26^th August evening session on “The World’s Top 25 Most Endangered Primates – 2004” a list of threatened prosimians, monkeys and apes whose survival beyond the present century will depend heavily on actions taken now by our own species. The list has proved a highly efficient tool in bringing into global focus a number of species judged to be critically endangered, but currently lacking the attention they need from the conservation community. This session will be open to the general public.

We are certain that, during the course of this congress, many eminent primatologists will look into the mirror while trying to answer the question of what primatologists are, what they were, and where they want to go during the next century.

Cristina Giacoma

Chair of  XX IPS Congress

President of  API (Associazione Primatologica Italiana)