Primate Facts

Everything you ever wanted to know about primates...with pictures, too! About me: I'm an anthropologist who mostly studies humans but I'm also interested in primatology (specifically the cognitive abilities of lesser apes).

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Red-shanked douc and baby, from Anup Shah and Arkive.org.

Never seen on the ground in the wild, the red-shanked douc spends almost all of its time feeding high in the treetops. While traversing the canopy, it moves with a distinctive gait on all four limbs and swings between the branches using its elongated arms.

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Tibetan macaque, by Brad Josephs.

Macaques are a "political" society, with a complex network of relationships. By carefully cultivating relationships and relying on them when necessary, an individual is able to influence the interactions with others, and make his/her life in the group manageable if not smooth. This is very necessary in macaques, who are bad tempered compared with other non-human primates (prosimians, monkeys and apes).

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Gray slender loris, by N. A. Naseer.

The gray slender loris is a tree-dwelling species that moves along branches on all fours, and stretches between thin end branches in order to reach a neighbouring tree. Its tiny hands enable this loris to grip the smallest of branches, and a special network of blood vessels in the wrists and ankles allow it to grip tightly for a few days without suffering any muscle cramp.

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Golden-bellied capuchin, by Ellen van Yperen.

The yellow-breasted or golden-bellied capuchin is a highly social and intelligent monkey which lives in groups of up to 30 individuals. Group members communicate using barks, growls, screams, whistles and chattering. They spend most of their lives in trees where their grasping primate hands and prehensile tail help them move throughout the rainforest. Groups are active by day and forage through their forest range feeding on fruit, nuts, flowers shoots eggs, invertebrates and small mammals.

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Pygmy slow loris babies, by David Haring.

While sympatric with slow lorises in part of its range, pygmy slow lorises are confined to a somewhat smaller geographical area. They are found in the countries of Vietnam, Laos, and the province of Yunnan in China. Where they do occur, members of this species are usually found in thick foliage deep in tropical rainforests. They are also sometimes found in bamboo groves.

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Agile gibbon, from Sean Crane.

Agile gibbons rarely come down from the treetops in the southeast Asian rainforests they inhabit. It's often easy to spot these gibbons as both sexes have striking white eyebrows that stand out against their dark fur, but it is only the males that have the characteristic white cheek pouches. Once mated, agile gibbons stay together for life and form a family group with their offspring. They sing in the early morning as a way of establishing and defending their territory.

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Sooty mangabey, from Primate Info Net.

More often heard than seen, the sooty mangabey has a rather broad vocal repertoire, including grunts and twitters which are frequently heard when foraging or during social interactions, and screams and growls given during aggressive and defensive situations.

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Young mouse lemur, from National Geographic.

Mouse lemurs are forest dwellers that live in female-dominated groups of up to 15 animals. They spend most of their time in trees, and can move nimbly from branch to branch and tree to tree. Mouse lemurs sleep aloft during the day and forage at night for insects, fruit, flowers, and other plants.

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White-faced saki, from Project Noah.

Sakis are very vocal with a variety of chirps, high-pitched whistling and a loud call used for territorial spacing. When threatened, white-faced sakis display by shaking tree limbs with their whole bodies, puffing themselves up so that they look bigger, and emitting a growling sound.

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Lesser bushbaby, from David Haring.

In a series of leaps, a bush baby can easily cover 10 yards in seconds. The tail (longer than the length of the head and body) powers the leaps made to catch prey, escape from enemies, or get around obstacles. The bush baby's other methods of locomotion are kangaroo-like hops or simply walking or running on four legs. They frequently mark their routes with urine. By following their own scent, they can jump onto exactly the same branches each time when they go to or from their nest. Males also urine-mark the boundaries of their territories and will sometimes become aggressive toward intruders.

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Red-faced black spider monkey, from animalphotos.me.

Like other species of spider monkeys, black spider monkeys occupy the upper layers of the rainforest and forage in the high canopy (from 25 to 30 m [82.0 to 98.4 ft]). As large-bodied frugivores, black spider monkeys are important seed dispersers within the rainforest ecosystem and play a crucial role in regenerating tropical forests…Despite their dependence on fruit as the mainstay of their diet, black spider monkeys supplement their fruit consumption during periods of scarcity with other food items including flowers, leaves, roots, bulbs, bark and decaying wood, and honey.

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Happy Father's Day! Here's a white cheeked gibbon family, from Julie Larsen Maher.

Gibbons are unique in that infants are born with blonde fur like their mother, but by age 2 their color turns to black.  When they reach adulthood, males remain black and females change back to blonde.

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Sun-tailed monkey, from arkive.org:

The sun-tailed monkey has a polygynous mating system, and adult males will actively defend their groups from other males trying to usurp them. Whilst males disperse from their natal group, females remain, and a dominance hierarchy exists amongst these females, which is subsequently inherited by their offspring.

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Fat-tailed dwarf lemurs, from the Duke Lemur Center:

The fat-tailed dwarf lemur hibernates in holes of trees along the western coast of Madagascar for up to seven months each year. Like all hibernating animals, this primate uses hibernation as an opportunity to conserve energy during a period when the fruits and leaves it usually feeds on are not readily available. During this time, the animal's metabolic activity decreases to about 2 percent of what it would be if it were active, and its body temperature drops to match the ambient temperature, which can drop to as low as 41 degrees Fahrenheit (5 degrees Celsius) during certain times of the year, but generally hovers around 59 F (15 C). When the lemur is awake, its body temperature boosts back up to around 98 F (37 C).

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White-thighed surili monkeys, from arkive.org:

Like other Presbytis species, the white-thighed surili (Presbytis siamensis) is a medium-sized, slenderly built monkey with a long tail, a short muzzle and relatively long fur. The top of its head and its back tend to be a dark greyish-brown, while the underside of the body, including the undersides of the tail, legs and arms, tends to be a lighter pale grey to white. There is also a large whitish patch on the outside of the legs, from which the white-thighed surili gets its name.

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Patas monkey, from Jiri Bohdal.

The patas monkey is the most terrestrial (ground-dwelling) and fastest of all primates, running at speeds of up to 35 miles per hour. Although the patas will climb trees when alarmed, it spends most of its time on the ground. An exception to the rule of big, aggressive Old World Monkeys, the patas will run away rather than fight.

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A siamang showing off its throat sac, from arkive.org:

In the early hours of the morning, the powerful song of the siamang fills the forest. This singing, which can be heard up to around two kilometres away, includes duets by the adult male and female, and functions to establish and maintain pair bonds, and to advertise their presence and territory. These vocalisations have been known to continue for around fifteen minutes, and are much louder than those of other gibbon species.