monkey

The golden lion tamarin, a member of the marmoset family, is one of three species of tamarin found in the rainforests of southeast Brazil. Tamarins live in family groups, in dense vegetation, 3-10 m/10-33 ft above the ground. They are gravely endangered by the loss of primary tropical forest.

Snow monkeys in Nagano, Japan.

Any of the various smaller, mainly tree-dwelling anthropoid primates, excluding humans and the apes. There are 125 species, living in Africa, Asia, and tropical Central and South America. Monkeys eat mainly leaves and fruit, and also small animals. Several species are endangered due to loss of forest habitat, for example the woolly spider monkey and black saki of the Amazonian forest.

Old World monkeys (family Cercopithecidae) of tropical Africa and Asia are distinguished by their close-set nostrils and differentiated thumbs, some also having cheek pouches and rumps with bare patches (callosities) of hardened skin. They include baboons, langurs, macaques, and guenons.

New World monkeys of Central and South America are characterized by wide-set nostrils, and some have highly sensitive prehensile tails that can be used as additional limbs, to grasp and hold branches or objects. They include two families:

(1) the family Cebidae, which includes the larger species saki, capuchin, squirrel, howler, and spider monkeys;

(2) the family Callithricidae, which includes the small marmosets and tamarins.

Recent discoveries The oldest known monkey skull was discovered in 1997 near Lake Victoria in Kenya. The skull of Victoriapithecus macinnesi (a small monkey resembling a vervet) is between 14.7 and 16 million years old.

A new species of titi monkey was discovered in north-eastern Brazil in early 2000, by Japanese and Brazilian researchers. Callicebus coimbrai was immediately classified as endangered by the World Conservation Union. In 2004 researchers discovered an unknown species of macaque monkey on an expedition to the Arunachal Pradesh area of northeastern India. The new species was given the designation Macaca munzala (but was also known as the Arunachal macaque after the region where it was first seen).

In 2005 a new subspecies of monkey was discovered in the highland forests of Tanzania. The long-furred brown monkey was called the highland mangabey, lophocebus kipinji. It is a close relative of baboons and has a distinctive low-pitched ‘honk-bark’ call.