Monkey Facts & Species, Primates Care And Tips

50 Amazing Monkey Facts

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Monkeys are among the most watchable animals on Earth: loud, clever, social and endlessly surprising. Below are 50 of the most interesting things worth knowing about them, grouped so you can skim or read straight through. If a fact sparks your curiosity, follow the links to the deeper guides on this site.

Classification and Family Tree

  1. There are roughly 260 to 340 recognised monkey species, depending on which taxonomy you follow, and new ones are still being described.
  2. “Monkey” is not a single scientific group. It is a convenient label for two branches: Old World monkeys of Africa and Asia, and New World monkeys of the Americas. See Old World vs. New World Monkeys.
  3. Apes, including gorillas, chimps, gibbons and humans, are not monkeys. The quickest field test is the tail, though there is more to it, as explained in Monkeys vs. Apes.
  4. New World monkeys have flat noses with nostrils that open to the sides. Old World monkeys have narrow noses with downward-facing nostrils.
  5. Only some New World monkeys have a true prehensile tail that can grip. No Old World monkey does.
  6. Macaques are the most widely distributed primate genus other than humans.
  7. The Barbary macaque of Gibraltar is the only monkey population living wild in Europe.
  8. No monkey species is native to Australia or Antarctica.
  9. Tarsiers, lemurs, lorises and bushbabies are primates but not monkeys.
  10. For the full family tour, start with Types of Monkeys.

Size, Speed and Strength

  1. The mandrill is the heaviest monkey, with big males reaching well over 30 kilograms.
  2. The pygmy marmoset is the smallest, often weighing about as much as a deck of cards plus a little more. Details in Smallest Monkey Species.
  3. The patas monkey is the sprint champion of the group, built for open-country running rather than climbing.
  4. Spider monkeys can cross gaps of several metres in a single swing.
  5. Gram for gram, several monkeys out-pull humans thanks to muscle architecture rather than sheer bulk. More in The Strongest Monkey Species.
  6. Baboon canines can exceed the length of a lion’s relative to skull size, which is why threat yawns work so well.
  7. Colobus monkeys have a thumb reduced to a stub, which makes their hands better hooks for branch-swinging.
  8. Some monkeys are surprisingly capable swimmers, including proboscis monkeys and crab-eating macaques. See Can Monkeys Swim?
  9. Compare the extremes in Largest Monkeys on Earth and The Fastest Monkey Species.
  10. Body size within a species often differs sharply between sexes, especially in baboons and mandrills.

Senses and Bodies

  1. Old World monkeys generally have three-colour vision much like ours.
  2. In many New World species, full colour vision is common in females and rarer in males because of how the genes sit on the X chromosome.
  3. Owl monkeys, the only nocturnal monkeys, have given up colour vision for better night sensitivity. See Nocturnal Monkeys.
  4. Monkeys have fingerprints, and no two individuals share the same pattern.
  5. Howler monkeys have an enlarged hollow hyoid bone in the throat that turns their calls into one of the loudest sounds made by any land animal.
  6. Macaques and guenons carry food in cheek pouches, letting them grab now and chew somewhere safer.
  7. Leaf-eating langurs and colobus monkeys ferment foliage in a chambered stomach, a bit like a cow.
  8. Geladas spend most of the day pulling grass, an unusual diet for a primate.
  9. Sitting pads called ischial callosities let Old World monkeys perch on hard branches for hours.
  10. Learn how these features fit together in Monkey Adaptations.

Behaviour and Intelligence

  1. Vervet monkeys use different alarm calls for leopards, eagles and snakes, and troop mates respond appropriately to each.
  2. Wild capuchins crack nuts with stone hammers on stone anvils, and some macaque populations use stones to open shellfish. More in Do Monkeys Use Tools?
  3. Grooming is social currency as much as hygiene, as covered in Why Monkeys Groom Each Other.
  4. Many species have been shown to track quantities and order small sets, a rough numerical sense.
  5. Japanese macaques wash food before eating it, a habit that spread socially through a wild troop.
  6. Rhesus macaques pass food-sharing and fairness tests that reveal clear social expectations.
  7. A yawn from a male baboon is usually a threat, not a sign of boredom, one of many misread signals in 25 Funny Monkey Behaviors Explained.
  8. Titi monkeys twine their tails together while resting, a pair-bonding behaviour.
  9. Some troops maintain traditions, such as favoured sleeping trees, across generations.
  10. Read the research summary in Monkey Intelligence and the species rankings in Smartest Monkey Species.

Life, Range and Conservation

  1. Most monkeys give birth to a single infant, but marmosets and tamarins routinely have twins.
  2. Marmoset twins swap cells in the womb, so individuals can carry their sibling’s genetic material.
  3. Infants cling to their mother’s fur within minutes of birth.
  4. Lifespans typically run from about 15 to 40 years, with captive records much higher. See Monkey Lifespan.
  5. Japanese macaques and snub-nosed monkeys live through genuine snowy winters, described in Monkeys That Live in Snowy Climates.
  6. Monkeys are major seed dispersers, and losing them changes forest composition.
  7. Monkeys flew on early space missions before humans did.
  8. Habitat loss, hunting and the pet trade are the main threats, detailed in Endangered Monkey Species.
  9. Protecting forest corridors helps more species than almost any single intervention, as explained in Monkey Conservation.
  10. Curiosity helps too: informed people make better decisions about tourism, pets and donations.

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