The Monkeys Are One Of The Most Interesting Animals

A few weeks ago, I spent a lovely Monday afternoon observing two different primates at the Santa Ana Zoo. I got to the zoo around two in the afternoon, and to my surprise, the zoo was decently crowded. The Santa Ana Zoo is smaller in comparison to other zoos like the Los Angeles Zoo, but still had a decent amount of animals there. Covering a small 20 acres of land, I came across two primates that fit perfectly for the purposes of this course project. I chose to observe an endangered ape, the white-handed gibbon, and an endangered new world monkey, the golden-headed lion tamarin.

Primates are one of the most interesting mammals on earth, not only because of their complex social structures, but because they hold so many similar characteristics to humans. Primates are often cited as our closest living relatives and on two separate occasions I observed four separate species of primates at the San Diego Zoo that can justify their use of their physical characteristics and behaviors that may be similar as well as different to the other primates and ours.

Within these small groups, the Cross River Gorilla has very predominant traits to keep them alive when almost extinct and facing a harsh environment (What’s Our Mission). These gorillas have a considerably large body size and they also have quite large hands but short forearms; along with small forward facing eyes that are put close together on top of a large nasal region (Etiendem, D., & Tagg, N,). Due to being so big they need a lot of nutrients, and in order to obtain enough food, they eat a large array of diets such as plants in many varieties, and fruits (Etiendem, D., & Tagg, N.). Since they live in the higher parts of the mountains near the border of Nigeria, the amount of fruit trees that exist are much lower than other regions, so they have come to rely on vegetation (Etiendem, D., & Tagg, N.). Since almost all fruit is seasonal, the primates must learn when they can eat one type, and when vegetation is important. (Etiendem, D., & Tagg, N.), (Imong, I., & Robbins, M.). The food they eat also determines how sexually successful they will be in the coming years.

Within this essay, we will study more in depth the behavioral as well as physical traits of two primates at a zoo from their interaction with their peers to their place in the group. This observation would enable us to further understand the possible existing correlation between humans and primates. First, I studied a female chimpanzee with her baby, and then, a dominant male gorilla, in San Francisco Zoo at about noon, on May 23, 2015, for an hour each. Even though they share some similarities such as having a large brain, living for a long time, and being bored in their enclosure, they are still different; when gorillas are the largest, chimpanzees are the smartest. In fact, chimps use tools to catch food, they would not be able to reach

An observational study conducted, concluded that wild capuchins use anvils and stone pounding tools as a means to facilitate nut-cracking . In the study, a group of ten wild capuchin monkeys where observed in a habitat that is scarce in food, aside from palms. There are different types of palm nuts, larger ones with an oval shape and smaller ones that are as small as 2.5 to 3 cm in diameter. It is interesting to note that many different anvil sites were observed, and what is more interesting is that on the anvil sites, river pebbles were seen and since these are not usually found in the area, it can be assumed that capuchins transport their stones to the anvil sites. An abundance of palms, yet otherwise limited food, has contributed to tool use for nut-cracking becoming a common routine. As a result of the study, wild capuchins were directly observed using anvils as tools for stone pounding. Additionally, characteristic depressions on anvils as well as palm shells and stone pounding tools leftovers indicate nut-cracking. Capuchin monkey choose anvil sites that provide a flat surface to facilitate nut-cracking, often the anvils used by capuchins are made of sandstone or siltstone, but they can also be boulders and fallen trees Essentially anything in the capuchin’s vicinity, that could provide a suitable substrate. When capuchins crack palm nuts, they typically hold the selected stone using both hands and stand in a bipedal

Isbell and Wright’s articles both focus on monkey species and their native environments, Africa for Isbell’s (1994) vervet Old World monkey and South America, Peru area, for Wright’s (1994) owl and titis monkeys. The articles main focus is the relationship between these monkeys and their natural predators. Focusing on how the predator aspect of their lives is determined by their environment and adaptations they make to ensure survival. Isbell’s Vervets Year of Doom focuses more on the adaptations that was forced upon the vervets’ because of their changing environment, the death of fever trees. While Wright’s Night Watch on the Amazon focusses more on how the primates way of life affects their relationship with predators and the likelihood of attacks. Both articles have similar aspects however the species way of life, specifically their environment and sleep schedule, are quite different as well as the authors way of observing and studying the primates within their habitats.

The use of tools comes to practice everyday as chimpanzees collect food from the jungle. Goodall describes how chimpanzees in Tanzania’s Gombe National Park use straw and blades of grass poke holes to hunt for termites by “squatting beside the termite nest, pushing and withdrawing the long grass stem through a hole”. Moreover, during Gooddal’s research, she observed chimpanzees modifying tools, such as small leafy twigs, thus showing the beginnings of tool making. Chimpanzees in West Africa also use tools to get honey from underground bees’ nests. Recently, scientists found out that chimpanzees living in West Savannah use deadly spears from sticks and hand crafted tools to hunt for small animals.

The hands are hook-like, with four elongated, curved, fingers.” (The author) then goes on to describe how the thumb of the brown spider monkey is “reduced,” which is helps in swinging and gripping branches while the monkey travels in the upper canopy of the rainforest. The coloration of brown spider monkeys ranges from light to dark brown on the upper parts of their body and their head, while the inside of the arms and legs is a slightly lighter color of brown. Some individuals of the brown spider monkey population also possess the conspicuous characteristic of a white triangular forehead patch. Behaviorally, the brown spider monkey is a diurnal and very social species. They live in what are known as “fission-fusion” societies in which smaller groups, up to about 30 members, are formed during the day. Male spider monkeys usually travel in all male groups while females travel with other females and their offspring, though it is not necessarily unusual to find a brown spider monkey traveling or foraging alone. At night, brown spider monkeys sleep in trees in the high canopy away from most predators. They choose a location to sleep that is near a fruit tree so they do not have to travel far the next day to find food. Differences in sizes of these groups occur due to varying availability of fruit. When fruit is abundant, the groups tend to be larger and when the amount of fruit is limited they

According to van Roosmalen (1985), it is a hypothesized that dominant female spider monkeys lead the group to food sources, suggesting why there may be a difference in these animals due to their ecology. As there is only one study to date about spider monkey color vision and it was based on one male and one female monkey, this study will add to our knowledge about whether spider monkeys have similar

This paper aims to study the traits of non-human primates. By observing two types of primates including Common Squirrel Monkey (Saimiri sciureus) and Western Gorillas (Gorilla Gorillas), I try to find out their characteristics, pattern of their behavior, and differences between these two primate species. Especially, characteristics and behavior such as social interaction, food acquisition and intelligence will be discussed and compared in this paper. In order to enhance the persuasiveness of my observation, I recorded and examined at least 25 distinct characteristics of both Common Squirrel Monkeys and Western Gorillas. It is also helpful for me to compare these two primates. Apart from exploring the primates’ traits and differentiation between them, this paper will discuss the effects of captivity. How being in captivity and on display in a zoo would influence their behaviors and emotions? The observation was a great success and I have successfully derived with a hypothesis base on our observing data. The ultimate goal of this paper is arousing humans’ awareness of the importance of studying primates.

The first focal animal I chose to observe was a female adult spider monkey named Gumbelina who was sitting with a few of the other monkeys that were all sitting and grooming each other. She seemed to be very relaxed and won’t

The weather of my first visit was 48/41᷾⁰ F, cloudy and there was a lot of wind and humidity. I came around 11:40 am and left at 1:21 pm. My second visit the weather was 37/36⁰ F, it drizzle, was mostly cloudy and there was a lot of humidity but not a lot windy. All of my observations include a 20 minutes observation of each primate as it cohabitated with other primates and with other members of its own species. My findings will support the research of Western Lowland Gorilla and Cotton-Top Tamarin through firsthand

Despite having different jaw shapes, their tooth types share the same function, from grinding and tearing to chewing and crushing (Larsen, 2008). Primates have also gone through multiple evolutionary changes in their dentition, reflecting on the types of foods they have eaten. Premolars and molars of primates, which were often used for grinding or crushing their food, have significantly changed and influenced the functions of their teeth (Larsen, 2008). Incisors and canines were often used to pierce and rip through food, such as leaves. This helps indicate different types of food preferences and feeding specialization in primates since they have heterodont dentition, meaning that they have more than one type of tooth (Swindler, 2002). Although the diets within the population of primates have changed significantly, teeth development has not differed (Steinberg, 2003). The differences between non-human primates are quite subtle and their characteristics are relatable to humans when it comes to primate

The three sites where hunting has been observed in bonobo populations are Wamba, Lamaki and Lui Kotale. Chimpanzees have been observed more often in hunting prey, and the few cases of hunting in bonobos could be attributed to a lower level of violence found in bonobo populations. At the site of Lui Kotale, in the Salonga national Park in the Democratic Republic of Congo fresh bonobo feces was analyzed on a regular basis to see what the bonobo diet consisted of. The samples are first broken down to find the bigger undigested material, ten run through mesh to pull out anything else.

In 1988 at the University of Zurich, Eduard Stammbach set up an experiment with long tailed macaque monkeys to determine if they were able to rein aggressive behavior and act cooperatively. Subgroups of monkeys were created, and the lowest ranking monkey was taught to press a set of levers in a specific sequence that caused a machine to deliver popcorn. The high-ranking monkeys noticed the low ranking monkeys’ unique skills. The high-ranking monkeys soon began grabbing all the popcorn. Before long the low ranking monkeys stopped operating the machine. This did not last long because the higher-ranking monkeys began to change their behavior. The higher-ranking monkeys began to approach the lower ranking monkeys more peacefully, and allowed the lower ranking monkeys a share of the popcorn. Furthermore some higher-ranking monkeys began to groom the lower monkeys even when the machine was inoperative.