Saturday, March 19, 2011

Not a true spider, but a true swinger: Geoffroy's Spider Monkey (Ateles geoffroyi) also known as Black-handed Spider Monkey. WWF maximum cards / maxicards / dorincards from Honduras. Postmark says Tegucigalpa.

"Geoffroy's Spider Monkey, Ateles geoffroyi, also known as Black-handed Spider Monkey,[3] is a species of spider monkey, a type of New World monkey, from Central America, parts of Mexico and possibly a small portion of Colombia. There are at least five subspecies. Some primatologists classify the Black-headed Spider Monkey, A. fusciceps, found in Panama, Colombia and Ecuador as the same species as Geoffroy's Spider Monkey.
It is one of the largest New World monkeys, often weighing as much as 9 kilograms. Its arms are significantly longer than its legs, and it has a prehensile tail that can support the entire weight of the monkey and that is used as an extra limb. Its hands have only a vestigial thumb, but long, strong hook-like fingers. These adaptations allow the monkey to move by swinging by its arms beneath the tree branches."

"females are sometimes mistaken for males by human observers.[15]"


"Although they do not use tools, spider monkeys, including Geoffroy's Spider Monkey, are regarded as intelligent primates. 


A study performed in 2007 concluded that spider monkeys were the third most intelligent non-human primate, behind only orang-utans and chimpanzees, and ahead of gorillas and all other monkeys.[22] 


This mental capacity may be an adaptation to spider monkeys' frugivorous diets, which require them to be able to identify and memorize many different types of foods and their locations.[23]"


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geoffroy%27s_Spider_Monkey



A pink element in the above picture would be the lips/mouth of the baby monkey in the lower-left image, I guess. :)
========================================
Happy Pink Saturday!

Please visit "Pretty in pink"/ "Show us your pink" [objects, that is :)] meme here: