Movies often show monkeys devouring bananas, but the truth is that this primate loves a wide range of foods. In the wild, they’re omnivorous and may eat fruits, leaves, flowers, nuts, bark, seeds, insects, birds’ eggs, and even lizards. Some species have specialized anatomy to exploit particular foods, like howler and colobus monkeys with long digestive tracts to extract hard-to-digest leaf nutrients. And one Old World species, the gelada, is the only monkey that eats grass.
Monkeys are social creatures that typically live in groups. They also have a variety of troop structures, including a dominant male that leads a group.
Some monkeys—like the chimpanzees and gorillas—are endangered, but many others are in decline because of habitat loss and fragmentation, live capture for the pet trade, hunting for bushmeat or traditional medicine, and poaching for talismans and traditional medicines. In addition, some of the more domesticated monkeys are becoming increasingly valuable to medical research. Macaques and marmosets are among the most popular research animals, used in dozens of medical advances, including polio vaccines, life support systems for premature infants, deep brain stimulation for Parkinson’s disease, and more.
If a person wants to keep a monkey as a pet, they must have a large and secure enclosure that is expensive and sometimes requires permits and home inspections. They must also provide lots of exercise, ever-changing toys, and a variety of different food to keep the animal stimulated. Monkeys can live for 30 years, so they’re companions for the long haul—a much longer timeframe than the average dog or cat.
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