Data from: Thermal imaging demonstrates physiological responses to grooming interactions and audience effects in wild baboons

This dataset comprises 1,583 thermal observations of wild chacma baboons
(Papio ursinus) in Namibia, collected during grooming, foraging, and
resting behaviours. Observations include metadata on date, troop,
environmental temperature, individual identity, behavioural context,
audience composition, number of repeated images in a session under the
same condition, and nasal temperature measurements extracted from infrared
thermal images. Data were collected under natural conditions and processed
using ThermoView Pro software, with images manually annotated for quality.
Of the 1,626 original images captured, 43 were excluded due to
environmental confounds (e.g., direct sun, wind) or data scarcity based on
age group (e.g., infants). The dataset is structured at the
session-observation level and includes repeated measures across
individuals. It supports research on social physiology, emotional proxies
in animals, audience effects, and the application of non-invasive thermal
imaging in behavioural ecology. Ethical approval and research permit were
obtained from the UK and Namibian authorities, and all data were collected
via non-invasive methods. The dataset offers strong reuse potential for
studies of primate behaviour, physiology, and socioecological dynamics in
wild populations.