Every kind of monkey has a subtle difference from its appearance to the body count, diet, and habitat.
There are more than 260 types of monkeys globally, yet every species is different from the other. This article will acquaint you with the monkey species you may not have encountered.
Table of Contents
1. Proboscis monkey
The Proboscis monkey, a long-nosed monkey, is an old-world arboreal monkey with a huge nose. The monkey has a reddish-brown skin color and a long tail.
The monkey is an endemic species to the southeast Asian island of Borneo. The species is mainly found in the mangrove forest and the coastal areas of the islands.
Sexual dimorphism occurs in the species. Females(55cm height and 10kg weight on average) are usually shorter and lighter than males (70cm height and 20kg weight).
The monkey species form a group composed of an adult male and female and offspring. All-male groups are also seen in the species. The species is listed as an endangered species.
2. Bornean orangutan
The Bornean orangutan is an orangutan that coexists with the Proboscis monkey on the island of Borneo. The species is endemic to the area.
Orangutans, the only genus of great apes native to Asia, are highly intelligent, displaying tool use and distinguishing cultural patterns in the wild. The apes share around 97 percent of their DNA with humans.
The species is critically endangered because of ongoing deforestation, palm oil plantation, and poaching, which is a menace to the left number of the species.
After the gorilla, the orangutans, the second-largest ape, have distinctive features: a giant arm, gray skin, coarse, hairy, reddish coat, and prehensile. Just like Probosci’s monkeys, the orangutan is a sexually dimorphic species.
3. Mandrill
Mandrill is the world’s most giant monkey found in southern Cameroon, Gabon, equatorial guinea, and the republic of the congo.
The mandrill is a member of the old world monkey. The international union for conservation for Nature (IUCN) listed the species as vulnerable.
As no other mammal has blue pigment, the species is considered exceptional by the mammalian standard: Charles Darwin wrote in the descent of the man no other mammal is as colored as an adult male mandrill.
The mandrill is an omnivorous animal: they feed on numerous plants, eggs, invertebrates, even vertebrates.
The mandrill is the heaviest living monkey in the world. Mandrill lives in large and stable groups and uses chest glands olfactory communication.
4. Golden snub-nosed monkey
The golden snub-nosed monkey, popularly known as Sichuan golden hair monkey, is endemic to central and southwest China’s small temperate mountainous forest.
The monkey is an old-world monkey in the subfamily Colobinae. The monkeys live in a snowfall susceptible area; they have a built-in system to withstand cold temperatures better than any non-human primate.
The adults of the species are sexually dimorphic. Adults males have large bodies with long golden hairs on their back and cape areas.
They have a crest of medium brown color, while the back and other thighs are of dark brown colors.
As of now, the distribution of the species is only limited to four of the provinces of China: Sichuan, Gansu, Shaanxi, and Hubei.
5. Panamanian white-faced Capuchin
The species is a medium-sized New World monkey. The monkey is native to Central America and is imperative for the amazon’s ecology for its role in dispersing seeds and pollen.
The monkey is brilliant. The monkeys have various temperaments: they live in different forests and eat other foods.
The monkeys are primarily black with pink faces and white on the front body. The adults, on average, weigh up to 3.9 kg. The species are very social: they live in sixteen individuals on average.
The IUCN listed the species as vulnerable. The reasons are deforestation, hunting for pet trades, and farmers attacking them as potential threats.
They are an excellent tool user and expert at understanding the plants for medicinal use. They are long-lived monkeys with a maximum age record of 54 years.
6. Lion-tailed macaque
Endemic to western ghats of South India, the species is an old-world monkey. The hair of the lion-tailed macaque is black, while the mane is silver-white. The hairless face is black.
The monkey is one of the small macaques with a head-body length of 50cm and 5kg on average. A recent assessment of IUCN reports 3000-3500 of these animals in the western ghats of South India.
The species is endangered because of growing tea agriculture and constructing a water reservoir near their habitat.
The species is diurnal: it is exclusively active during the day hours. It is an arboreal living animal that feeds on various fruit trees.
They avoid human interaction and live in a hierarchical group of 15 members on average.
7. Emperor tamarin
The animal is a tamarin species named for its resemblance to the German emperor Wilhelm II. The species is native to the southwest amazon basin, in east Peru, north Bolivia, and in the Brazilian state of an acre and Amazonas.
The fur of the species is gray with yellow speckles on its chest. The hand and feet are brown, while the tail is brown. They have a super long, white beard that extends beyond their shoulders.
The animals reach a length of 25 centimeters, their tail lengths of 40 centimeters on average, and weigh approximately 500 grams.
The species are on the list of most diminutive concerned species. The species are playful, active, and gregarious in the wild; they are very social and interactive with humans in captivity.
8. Japanese macaque
The Japanese macaque is a sexually dimorphic animal, a terrestrial old-world monkey native to Japan.
They are colloquially known as snow monkeys because they can survive in areas where snow covers the ground for months each year.
The males weigh on average 11. kg, while the females weigh 8.4 kg. The males (57.01 cm tall) are usually taller than the females (52.28 cm tall).
The species is a semi-terrestrial animal: females spend more time in the trees while males spend more time on the grounds.
They are excellent swimmers and pros at leaping. Over time, the species have lost their fear of humans and increased their presence in rural and urban areas.
9. Colombian White-faced Capuchin
A medium-sized new world monkey, the Colombian white-faced Capuchin, is native to the extreme eastern portion of Panama and the outer north-western part of South America.
The IUCN listed the species as one of the threatened species because of various malicious activities.
Until the 21st century, the species was considered conspecific with the Panamanian white-faced Capuchin: Still, many primatologists believe them as a single species.
Females weigh between 1.5 to 3 kg, 27 percent smaller than males who weigh between 3 to 4 kg.
The monkeys are black on the body, tail, legs, and top of the head while white on the chest, throat, face, shoulder, and upper arms.
10. Crab eating macaque
The crab-eating macaque is a small old-world monkey native to southeast Asia. The crab-eating macaque has a long history alongside humans.
They were used as agricultural-pest and holy animals in some temples. Recently, they were a part of medical experiments. They are referred to as cynomolgus monkeys in laboratories.
The species live in a matrilineal social group of up to eight individuals: the groups are dominated by females. The males leave home when they hit puberty.
The species is known as an opportunistic omniverse. In Thailand and Myanmar, they were seen using tools to obtain food.
From the conservational standpoint of IUCN, the species is at a vulnerable stage. They are invasive species and pose a threat to biodiversity.
11. Vervet monkey
The monkey is an old-world species native to Africa. They can be found all over South Africa and in some eastern countries.
They are primarily herbivorous animals, and their body length ranges from about 40cm for females to about 50cm for males.
They serve as a subject to study behaviorism on natural populations. In addition, they also serve as a non-human primate model for understanding genetics and social behavior in humans.
They resemble human characteristics in every conceivable way: hypertension, anxiety, social and dependent alcohol use.
The vervet monkeys look similar to gray langurs. A black face with a fringe of white hair while its overall hair is mostly grizzled-grey, the vervets exhibit sexual dimorphism.
12. Bald uakari
The four subspecies of bald uakari, all of them, are listed in the vulnerable list. The bald uakari is a new world monkey member that possesses distinctive characteristics. They have a very short tail, bright crimson face, a bald head, and a long coat.
The species are prohibited to Varzea forest and other wooded habitats near water in the western Amazon of Brazil and Peru.
The bald uakari has a long and shaggy coat ranging from white to red, and its head is bald. The bright red facial skin is a parameter of good health and a determination of a healthy mate.
They live up to 15 to 20 years old approximately. Though in captivity, they have been recorded to live up to 30 years.
13. Golden lion tamarin
The golden lion tamarin, known as the golden marmoset, is a small New World monkey native to the Atlantic coastal forest.
The golden lion tamarin is put on the list of endangered species: the latest census reported that only 3,200 individuals are left in the wild, with 490 individuals captivated among the zoos.
The species has a bright reddish-orange pelage and long hairs around the face and the ear.
The species are typically around 261mm from head to bottom with dark and hairless faces and weigh 620g. Males and females of the species have almost the same size.
They are gregarious creatures and form a group consisting of 2-8 members. Threatened by illegal logging, poaching, mining, urbanization, the number of tamarinds is abating.
14. Black howler
The black howler is a giant new world monkey native to northeastern Argentina, eastern Bolivia, eastern and southern Brazil, and Paraguay.
The male adult male is black, while the females and juveniles are yellowish-buff. They form a group of three to nineteen individuals and survive among them.
They are the least active monkeys in the world as they sleep up to seventy percent of the day. Generally, they prefer walking and climbing, overrunning or leaping, and are folivorous.
The species are very gentle, so they are preferred as pets. Their life expectancy is 20 years.
They are heard howling during the sunrise. Howling reveals the howler’s position and prevents conflicts with other groups. They can be heard up to 5 km away.
15. Hamadryas baboon
Hamadryas baboon is a species from the old-world monkey family. Native to the horn of Africa and the southwestern region of the Arabian peninsula, they are the northmost of all the baboons.
The region has fewer predators than in central or southern Africa, where other baboons live, so the place is an ideal home to hamadryas.
The baboons have a religious significance in ancient Egypt; thus, they are called Sacred Baboons. Talking about the sizes, the males are almost double the size of females. They exert sexual dimorphism.
Adults males have a pronounced cape while females are careless. Females gain sexual maturity at the age of 4, and the males reach at 5 to 7 years.
16. Golden monkey
The species is an old-world monkey native to Virunga, the volcanic mountains of central Africa. Golden monkeys are restricted to the highland forest, especially near bamboo.
Once, the species was mistaken to be a subspecies of the blue monkey: however, the golden monkey has a subtle appearance as it has a golden-orange patch on the upper flanks and banks.
They live in a group of 30 individuals and feed on bamboo, leaves, and fruit. No more information is out of the species.
Due to the wars that destroyed their habitats, the species is listed as endangered in the IUCN red list.
As the sixth mass extinction is upon us, we don’t want these beautiful species to get extinct. Check our article on the effects and causes of such cessation.
(Last Updated on May 5, 2022 by Sadrish Dabadi)
