Monkey Facts


The mandrill baboon has a red nose, blue cheeks, and an orange beard!

Chimpanzees use tools more than any other animal except man.

A chimpanzee can learn to recognize itself in a mirror, but monkeys can't.

Squirrel Monkeys are the most common monkey in South-America.

Squirrel Monkeys tails are only partly prehensile.

Squirrel Monkeys move through trees by leaping.

Colobus monkey’s bushy tails, which often exceeds the length of their bodies.

Colobus monkeys have a long, black fur coat with a white stripe running down the sides of their backs to their tails.

Zanzibar is the only place where you will find the Kirk's Red Colobus monkey.

The male howler monkey of Central and South America is the noisiest land animal, which can be heard clearly from a distance of ten miles away.

The Spider Monkey offspring are dependent on their mothers for the first 2 to 3 years, with the females giving birth every 3 to 4 years.

Spider Monkeys will use all five appendages; arms, legs and tail, to scramble through trees.

Spider Monkeys have hook-like fingers, but no thumb, and the tip of their tail can support the weight of their entire body.

Spider Monkeys are very good climbers and are usually found in groups of around 30, often broken up into smaller sub-groups of around 3 or 4.

Groups of Snow Monkeys are primarily formed by adult females, there are roughly three time the number of adult females than there are adult males and young.

Human birth control pills work on gorillas.

Gorillas can catch human colds and other illnesses.

Gorillas are considered apes, not monkeys. The way to distinguish between an ape and a monkey is that apes do not have tails.

Gorilla's have unique nose prints just as humans have unique fingerprints.

Snow Monkeys live in areas where the temperature is an average of -10ºC.

The Old World monkeys include some terrestrial species such as the baboons, while New World monkeys are exclusively arboreal. Some New World monkeys have a prehensile, or grasping, tail. The tail can be used like a hand.

Monkeys are divided into two geographically separate groups - the New World monkeys of South America and the Old World monkeys, found in Africa and Asia.