By touching the females’ clitorises, then smelling their own fingers to detect olfactory cues, males are able to determine a female’s reproductive status. It allows the males to gauge a female’s sexual receptiveness. Primatologists believe that the enlarged clitoris of female Geoffroy’s spider monkeys helps the males decide which female to approach for mating. In what might be a case of primate penis envy, the female Geoffroy’s spider monkey is endowed with a protruding, oversized dangling clitoris (known as a “pendulous clitoris”) that resembles the flaccid penis of the male Geoffroy’s spider monkey-except the female’s organ is larger. Their expressive faces are hairless, with unpigmented skin framing the eyes and muzzle in a pale facial mask. Infants are born black, but their fur lightens in color during their first five months of life.Ī smallish head sits atop a lithe body. Their fur coats vary in color from light buff to reddish-brown or black. Like other monkeys and apes, Geoffroy’s spider monkeys have opposable big toes on their feet that can grab onto branches easily.Īs their name implies, the hands and feet of the Geoffroy’s spider monkeys are black. Long, hook-like fingers allow the monkeys to swing from tree to tree beneath the forest canopy with ease, with no help necessary from a vestigial thumb that evolution has rendered a functionless stub. The versatility and strength of this tail is most evident during suspensory feeding, when the monkeys hang, suspended from a tree branch around which they have wrapped their tail, while foraging for food. Their prehensile tail functions as a fifth limb, having adapted over the years to allow for grasping and manipulating objects. Spider monkeys are named for their extremely long, slender, “spidery” limbs. 10 OF THE MOST ENDANGERED PRIMATE SPECIES.10 PRIMATE SPECIES YOU PROBABLY NEVER HEARD OF.10 OF THE MOST WELL-KNOWN PRIMATE SPECIES.LIFE IN THE WORLD’S TROPICAL RAINFORESTS.THE CASE OF THE DISAPPEARING HABITIT: THE CANDY CULPRIT.ALPHABET SOUP OF CONSERVATION-VIDEO AND INTRODUCTION.GRIVET, MALBROUCK, TANTALUS, GREEN, AND VERVET MONKEYS.
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