Facts About Monkeys

Monkeys are intelligent animals that have been trained to act as service dogs for the disabled, and they’ve even been sent into space on a NASA mission. They are a keystone species in their natural habitats and have played important roles as pollinators of plants and dispersers of seeds. But many people don’t appreciate monkeys, and they are hunted for sport or eaten as food in some areas of the world.

Most monkeys are arboreal (living in trees), but a few, like the olive colobus, live on land. They have long legs and a narrow-chested body that differs from the barrel-chested bodies of apes. Many have tails that can grasp branches or hold things, and some also have prehensile feet that are ridged on the underside for gripping. They move through the forest canopy by clinging to and leaping from branches. Some, such as the mandrill and colobus monkeys, can swim, using webbed feet to paddle on the water’s surface.

Infant monkeys are helpless at birth, and most get rides on their mothers’ backs. But some monkeys, including marmosets and tamarins, are different: Their fathers take nearly all the responsibility of carrying babies on their backs, watching over them, and handing them off to Mom for nursing. They often give birth to twins or triplets, too.

Monkeys are very social, and groups of monkeys are called a troop. The members of a troop communicate with scents and calls, including a series of grunts that resemble human speech. Some monkeys, like the capuchin and squirrel monkeys, are able to recognize human faces and words. Others, such as Koko, the sign-language monkey, can spell whole words in American Sign Language but cannot put the words together grammatically.