The terrifying white-faced monkey shocked netizens with its shocking appearance, but they didn’t expect that its distant relatives are even more bizarre!

Recently, a tourist took a photo of a "scary white-faced monkey" with a shocking appearance in Nanjing Hongshan Forest Zoo.

The photo sparked heated discussions on social networks, with many netizens saying: This monkey looks really "explosive"!

In response, the hospital told tourists that this is a kind of monkey with different male and female colors that lives in South America. Its scientific name is white-faced saki (Pithecia pithecia).

So how does this monkey live? How is it different from the Monkey King, baboon, and golden monkey we are familiar with? This article will take you through a detailed analysis.

Male white-faced saki monkey

Image source: https://animalia.bio/white-faced-saki

The white-faced saki belongs to the genus Saki of the family Pitheciidae, in the order Primates, the suborder Haplorhini, the infraorder Simiiformes, the order Platyrrhini.

The Platyrhinidae are also called platyrrhines (named after the wide distance between their nostrils). Monkeys in the Platyrhinidae include spider monkeys, howler monkeys and squirrel monkeys. They are all distributed in the New World and are a unique branch of the primates.

Common marmoset, a type of platyrrhine monkey, look at its nostrils

Image source: https://animalia.bio/common-marmoset

The familiar golden monkeys, macaques to which Sun Wukong belongs, and many other monkeys distributed in Asia, Europe, and Africa belong to another branch of the order Anthropoides - Catarrhini (narrower distance between nostrils), which is also known as the Old World monkeys. Further subdivided is the family Cephalopodidae under Catarrhini. We humans, chimpanzees, gibbons (Hylobatidae), etc. belong to the superfamily Hominoidea under Catarrhini.

A specimen of the Eastern black-and-white colobus monkey, a species of phylum Nephilim, photographed at the Shanghai Natural History Museum

A white-browed gibbon of the family Hylobatidae, photographed at Shanghai Wild Animal Park

In short, although New World monkeys such as saki monkeys and spider monkeys have the word "monkey" in their names, just like the familiar macaques and golden monkeys, macaques are actually more closely related to us than macaques are to New World monkeys.

According to relevant research, the most recent common ancestor of Stenorrhinidae and Platyrrhinidae may have separated about 40 million years ago, and Platyrrhinidae actually originated from Africa, because they were driven into the sea with driftwood by the flash floods in Africa, and migrated between islands with the help of the island chain between Africa and South America at that time, and finally arrived in the New World. They branched out here and gradually became today's spider monkeys, saki monkeys, capuchins and other New World monkeys.

Scholars have also discovered fossil evidence of the evolution of platyrrhines - this is the Carrasco Chilean monkey (Chilecebus carrascoensis) from about 20 million years ago, which weighed about 600 grams, which is quite similar to many small New World monkeys.

Carrasco's Chilean monkey skull

(Photo courtesy of AMNH/N. Wong and M. Ellison)

Brown spider monkey Ateles hybridus

Image source: Wikipedia

Some time after the ancestors of the New World monkeys arrived in the New World, the island chain between Africa and South America sank into the sea.

From then on, Platyrrhines and Stenorrhines were isolated, and for many flightless terrestrial animals, if they wanted to travel from the Old World (Asia, Europe and Africa), they had to rely on the Bering Land Bridge between Asia and North America.

Of course, the first arrival of Catarrhine Old World primates to the New World was more than 10,000 years ago during the Late Pleistocene—these Old World primates were us, Homo sapiens.

When Homo sapiens were hunting and observing the creatures on these new continents (including monkeys, etc.), they did not conduct much scientific research on them at the beginning.

It wasn't until the last few hundred years that another group of Homo sapiens developed navigation tools and began studying these distant relatives of New World monkeys.

In 1766, the protagonist of this article, the white-faced saki monkey, was named by the master of biology, Linnaeus. It also has the honor of becoming the model species of the genus Saki.

Of course, other species of saki monkeys were named after the genus Saki. They all live in many areas from northern to central South America. The white-faced saki monkey lives in Suriname, northern Brazil, Guyana, Venezuela and other countries. Some saki monkeys are also distributed in Peru in the west.

White-footed saki Pithecia albicans is also found in western Brazil

Image source: https://animalia.bio/

The white-faced saki and its relatives are generally small in size, weighing only one or two kilograms. Unlike the large savannah baboons that sometimes hunt small antelopes, the small white-faced saki mainly eats vegetarian food such as plant fruits, occasionally eating leaves and seeds, and also eating meat such as insects.

Every day, they forage in the trees and sometimes on the ground. If they encounter an enemy, they will choose to shout loudly and make themselves look bigger, or pull the branches around them to bluff, so as to scare the predator.

White-faced Saki monkeys, possibly mother and son

Image source: https://animalia.bio/white-faced-saki

After they have had enough to eat and drink, they will naturally mate in the spring breeding season. During mating, you will see monkeys of different colors mixed together.

Why? Because the male white-faced saki monkeys have black bodies and white faces, while the female monkeys have non-white faces and their fur is darker gray-brown.

The color of young monkeys is similar to that of female monkeys. Their mating in the wild is generally "promiscuous" - a monkey, whether male or female, may have multiple partners and form a family group (most of them are monogamous in zoos).

After that, a gestation period of about 146-170 days will eventually give birth to a cute little monkey. In addition to being cared for by the elders, the little monkey will also be cared for by the older brothers and sisters in the group. It can be independent after 6 months, but it will take about 4 years for it to become a "monkey" parent.

Two white-faced saki monkeys

Image source: https://animalia.bio/white-faced-saki

In Latin America, the white-faced saki has many relatives with special abilities—other platyrrhine monkeys.

The red-faced spider monkey (Ateles paniscus) is a fellow countryman with a large overlapping distribution area with the white-faced saki. They have strong tails and limbs, making them the "Tarzan" of the New World . Compared with Tarzan, a Homo sapiens, they have a large tail that can support their entire body weight. (Of course, the same is true for other members of the spider monkey family Atelidae.) Red-faced spider monkeys are also "community cows", forming a large group of 20 to 30 monkeys every night. They also communicate with their peers by shaking their arms, shaking branches, scratching their chests, etc.

Red-faced spider monkey, photographed at Shanghai Wild Animal Park

The platyrrhine family also has members that can shout - the howler monkeys in the spider monkey family . Not only do they have strong tails like spider monkeys, they also have powerful roars (128-140 decibels) that can be heard several kilometers away.

Their roar is loud thanks to their large hyoid bones, which are connected to the trachea and help them form a huge, deep roar. They also use roars to declare their territory and warn intruders not to come. Roaring is a very important skill for male howler monkeys, because they will hold roaring competitions to seize territory, and the outcome of the competition is also determined by the loudness and duration of the male monkey's roar.

Black howler monkeys communicating, source: Wikipedia

Of course, it should be mentioned that different species of howler monkeys have different calls. Some howler monkeys have larger hyoid bones and roars, but the mantled howler monkeys (Alouatta palliata) have smaller hyoid bones but larger testicles. Mantled howler monkeys often live in groups with multiple male monkeys. At this time, male monkeys need to moderately weaken the skill point of roaring, and instead improve their reproductive ability to leave more offspring - smaller hyoid bones in exchange for larger testicles are conducive to successful competition for reproduction. Howler monkeys also have tail stripes on their tails - each tail stripe is different.

Resting mantled howler monkey, source Wikipedia

Bolivian red howler monkey, source: Wikipedia

Some can roar, and some of the platyrrhines look majestic . For example, the golden-headed lion tamarin (Leontopithecus chrysomelas) of the Callitrichidae family has a mane similar to that of a male lion. Although it weighs less than two kilograms, it has some of the majesty of a lion in its temperament. Of course, the lion mane on its neck can also stand up when it is frightened to scare away the enemy. Although it is small, it does not prevent it from becoming a killer in the eyes of some frogs, spiders and insects while eating fruits - they are omnivorous.

A golden-headed lion tamarin getting its hair cut, photographed at Shanghai Wild Animal Park

The common marmoset (Callithrix jacchus), which is smaller than the golden-headed lion tamarin and belongs to the same family, has a "fire cloud evil god" hairstyle. They have good adaptability - they can even adapt to relatively dry places and urban green spaces, and their number is also large among monkeys. Many common marmosets are also raised in the laboratory - these small animals are closely related to humans and reproduce faster than common macaques (Macaca mulatta) and other experimental monkeys, as experimental animals dedicated to scientific research.

Common marmoset carrying its baby on its back, source: Wikipedia

Platyrrhine monkeys, creatures that are quite distantly related to us, are performing evolutionary miracles on the land of the New World and showing us the richness and diversity of life.

These animals, whose threat levels are either non-threatening, vulnerable or even higher, also need people's attention and correct understanding of them.

References:

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3. Howler monkeys trade testicles for Decibels

Dunn, JC; Halenar, LB; Davies, TG; Cristobal-Azkarate, J.; Reby, D.; Sykes, D.; Dengg, S.; Fitch, WT; Knapp, LA (2015). "Evolutionary Trade-Off between Vocal Tract and Testes Dimensions in Howler Monkeys". Current Biology. 25 (21): 2839–44. doi:10.1016/j.cub.2015.09.029. PMC 4635310. PMID 26592343.

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Marsh, LK (July 2014). "A Taxonomic Revision of the Saki Monkeys, Pithecia Desmarest, 1804, Part 1" (PDF). Neotropical Primates. IUCN/SSC Primate Specialist Group, Conservation International. 21 (1): 1–82. Retrieved 2014-09-03.

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White-faced saki".http://www.oregonzoo.org/discover/animals/white-faced-saki-monkey. 8 December 2016.

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Author: Lv Zelong, ShanghaiTech University, Biological Sciences

Audit expert: Yuyu

Winner of the Silver Award for Outstanding Science Popularization Works of China Science Writers Association

Editor: Guru