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Did You Know?
- The Geoffroy’s Spider Monkey is also known as the Black-Handed Spider Monkey
- The tail of this New World Monkey plays an important role in their life and even includes a fleshy section that acts like a hand
- Due to a high rate of habitat loss, the Geoofroy’s Spider Monkey is listed as Endangered according to the IUCN.
This spider monkey is perfectly adapted for a life in the trees.
How, you ask? For starters, they have long gangly arms, a short body, essentially no thumbs and an amazing prehensile tail.
Let’s look at these a little more closely, shall we?
Long Gangly Arms (and legs)
Provides the power and momentum a tree-swinging monkey needs to get from place to place
Short Body
This allows the monkey to swing through dense vegetation without getting all tangled up
Under-developed Thumbs
Sure, we think our opposable thumbs are the best thing since sliced bread but for an animal that uses their palms to grip branches, that thumb is nothing but a major nuisance. Therefore a small thumb that is just there for show works perfectly.
An Amazing, Prehensile Tail
There tail is so useful that it gets a whole section in today’s blog post. Obviously the prehensile part allows the Geoffroy’s Spider Monkey to use their tail like an extra hand. Speaking of an extra hand, their tail actually has a fleshy pad on the bottom of it, which kind of looks and definitely acts like the palm of a hand. How cool would it be to have three hands? Interestingly enough, not a single hair grows on this section of the tail, otherwise it would become slippery and pretty much useless.
Quick Question: Would you give up your thumbs for an extra hand? Post your reasoning in the comments below, on Twitter or on Facebook.
A Losing Battle
As mentioned earlier, the Geoffroy’s Spider Monkey is listed as Endangered as a result of severe habitat destruction. The loss of habitat throughout their Central America home range has been so detrimental that approximately 50% of the species have been lost over the last 45 years. Hopefully, this Spider Monkey will find refuge in a few of the National Parks throughout their range, however, it looks like they may need a little more help than that, so let’s set up a few more conservation areas and slow down the amount of development in this area.
Harry Purple Monkey
Yes, you read that right! Recently, I came across an awesome series of books for children and the main character is a little spider monkey known as Harry Purple Monkey. Here is what Amazon.com has to say about our favourite Purple Monkey.
“Harry was not like other monkeys. He was so talented and funny, he could juggle ten balls, hoops and fruits of all shapes and sizes; and he was purple from head to toe. People would come to Marcel’s Traveling Circus from all around the world just to see the purple monkey juggler. His life was so good that he got lazy and didn’t practice anymore. When he could no longer juggle like he use to, no one wanted to see him anymore. Overhearing that Marcel was going to sell him to a zoo, Harry decided to take action and run away. Follow Harry on his first adventure as he travels to New York City, meets new friends, learns important lessons and becomes Harry, the purple monkey dishwasher”
Learn more about Harry Purple Monkey Dishwasher on his website (http://www.harrypurplemonkey.com/) or you can also follow him on Twitter and Facebook. Check it out, your kids will love him!
