Information About Spider Monkey
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| Information About Spider Monkey |
COMMON NAME:
Black spider monkey
SCIENTIFIC NAME:
Ateles paniscus
ORDER:
Primates
FAMILY:
Atelidae
DEFINITION:
It is a mammal with a body length of 40-50 cm, a long prehensile tail 60-85 cm and a weight of 6-10 kg.
HABITAT:
It lives in the tropical rainforests of Central and South America, primarily Suriname and Brazil.
DIET:
It feeds almost exclusively on fruit, but may also eat leaves if it is not available. Due to its diverse diet, it needs a wide variety of fruit trees and chooses fruits at different stages of maturity so as not to compete with other fruit eaters.
BIRTH:
After a gestation period of about 7 1/2 months, a calf is usually born.
CURIOSITY':
Ateles paniscus is known as
one of the most agile primitive apes in the New World. This platyrrhine monkey
moves between branches with great agility using its 5 long limbs, which allows
it to have a better grip (we show the tail as the fifth limb because it is
strong, long, grippy and equipped with fingertips). It is also very agile on
the ground: it can run in both bipedal and quadrupedal positions.
Unlike many other primates,
spider monkeys do not have thumbs. It was inherited, but has shrunk in size
over the course of evolution and is now completely atrophied due to disuse.
The tail, in addition to
bearing the full weight of the monkey while its limbs are busy manipulating
food, has a fundamental task during feeding: it can reach fruit that the hands
cannot reach. This sense of touch, which they wrap on branches not only to
collect fruit but also to swing in the space, is longer than the body and has
no hair on the tip. On the underside of the tail is a palm-sized area of bare
skin that actually acts as a fingerprint and helps the animal hold on tighter.
Spider monkeys are social
and gather in groups of 2 to 3 dozen individuals.
Ateles paniscus is called
the "spider monkey" because of the disproportionate length of its
limbs, but also because its tail looks like an additional limb giving it the
appearance of an almost giant insect.
It is considered vulnerable due to its conservation status, forest degradation and slow reproductive rate (a female gives birth to an offspring every 3 or 4 years).