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What Exactly Are Spider Monkeys?
Spider monkeys are giant New World monkeys in tropical jungles ranging from central Mexico to Bolivia.
There are seven different kinds of these nimble monkeys. They receive their name from how long limbs and tails dangle from branches and swing through the treetops.
Four lengthy fingers on each hand also assist them in grasping trees. (They have thumbs as well, but they are exceedingly short).
Brachiation, or moving from tree to tree, is how these swingers get around.
The spider monkey’s tail is prehensile, which means “capable of grasping”. It is usually longer than the animal’s body and functions as a fifth limb, adapting to life in the treetops.
It can sustain the spider monkey’s entire body weight and allows it to cling to branches while climbing, foraging, and eating.
Although they share some physical characteristics and behaviour, the seven spider monkey species differ in geographic distribution and appearance.
White-bellied spider monkeys have a black to chestnut brown coat with a light patch on the forehead and a white-beige hair stripe from the chin to the abdomen. They are found from Colombia to Peru.
Except for their bare cheeks, hands, and feet, red-faced spider monkeys are covered in silky black hair.
Nutrition and Behaviour
These creatures eat primarily fruits but also leaves, nuts, seeds, and occasionally arachnids and insects.
Spider monkeys play a crucial role in seed dispersal in their rainforest habitat. When animals eat the fruits and nuts from the trees and then leave, they deposit the seeds, which spread the tree species throughout the area.
Animals disperse between 50 and 90 per cent of seeds in tropical woods.
Spider monkeys are gregarious creatures living in groups of up to 40. Smaller subgroups within this group frequently branch off to forage for food.
A 2014 research of Mexican spider monkeys in Belize discovered that males spend more time eating and relaxing, and females spend more time-consuming ripe fruit and moving.
Males are more likely to be mobile since they patrol their borders and raid other troops before returning to check on their ladies.
Breeding
Male and female spider monkeys are known to have several sexual partners, but their reproductive conduct, even in captivity, is challenging to document and was not even observed until the 1970s.
A 2010 study of the black-faced spider monkey discovered that males must struggle to find and mate with the few receptive females in a single mating season.
It was also discovered that the majority of encounters took place in private. Like other primates, Spider monkeys create partnerships in which males and females join forces and leave the group for brief durations of only a few days.
Spider monkeys have a lengthy gestation span of seven to 7.5 months. Although they do not have a single breeding season, a single spider monkey will wait two to four years before giving birth again.
The neonates are all hairy except for the exposed skin around their “baby face” eyes. Most helpless babies cling to their mother, who takes over parental care and are weaned after two years.
Conservation of Species
The International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) says that all spider monkey populations are diminishing.
The most stable natural population, the Guyana spider monkey, which lives in Guyana, French Guiana, Suriname, and Brazil, is threatened with extinction.
Agricultural, livestock, and road building are eroding the monkeys’ habitat despite much of their area being protected.
The brown spider monkey lives in Colombia and Venezuela and has the least stable population.
These creatures are endangered, which means they are only two steps away from extinction.
They are a favourite target for hunters, who shoot them for enjoyment and to produce cures for disorders, including rheumatism and snakebites.
Furthermore, their woodland habitat is being removed for livestock, agriculture, logging, and human development.
Only 20% of the species’ historic range survives, and the remaining woodland areas may no longer be sustainable.
Some conservation action has been conducted for the species, including local awareness campaigns in Venezuela and ongoing studies to identify species and forests that may be protected in Colombia.
Other spider monkey species are likewise threatened by human-caused habitat loss.
The Central American spider monkey requires a lot of fruit for its diet, often found in dwindling forests.
The illegal drug trade is another threat to this monkey species.
Drug traffickers remove vast swaths of forest for cattle ranching or other money-laundering operations, taking 20 to 60% of the land in this monkey’s original range, which extends from Mexico to Panama.
The species is currently one of the world’s 25 most endangered primates, according to the International Primatological Society’s 2019 Primates in Peril report.
