Spider+Monkey

__**Spider Monkey**__
By: Angelina

__**Description:**__
Spider monkeys are characterized by their long, slender limbs and great agility. They travel in small bands in forest trees, moving swiftly by making tremendous leaps, sprawling out like spiders, and grasping tree limbs with their prehensile tails. The fur is gray to brown or black, with lighter undersides; the face has white eye rings and is shaded by projecting hair that is either light or dark in color. http://www.hensonrobinsonzoo.org/k001.html

__Size:__
Their about 14 to 26 in (35 to 66 cm) http://www3.nationalgeographic.com/animals/mammals/spider-monkey.html

__Diet:__
Spider monkeys are fruigivorous preferring a diet of 90% fruit and seeds, feeding on the mature soft parts of a wide variety of fruits in which the seeds are swallowed along with the fruit. They also eat young leaves, flowers, aerial roots, sometimes bark and decaying wood, as well as honey. TA very small part of the diet consists of insects, insect larvae and birds eggs. They eat large quantities of food over a relatively short period of time and they tend to feed by suspension while hanging, climbing or moving. They do not pick fruit and carry it to another location to be eaten. http://www.honoluluzoo.org/spider_monkey.htm

__Population__:
The population is estimated at 2,000 in isolated pockets. http://www.zooschool.ecsd.net/spider%20monkey.htm

__**Habitat:**__
//Spider monkeys// lives in evergreen rain forest, semideciduous forest and mangrove forest. (Rowe, 1996). Spider monkeys are primarily arboreal (adapted to live in trees) and never come to the ground. http://www.earthscape.org/p1/bri04/

__Lifespan:__
Their lifespan in the wild is about 27 years. http://www.honoluluzoo.org/spider_monkey.htm

__Range:__
Southern Mexico, Central and South America. http://www.hensonrobinsonzoo.org/k001.html

__Facts:__

 * Spider monkeys have been known to shake a vine occupied by a predator to cause them to fall. They have also been seen reaking off dead branches weighing nearly 5kg and dropping them on the predator.


 * They have a prehensile tail, which acts as a fifth limb, able to grasp objects or hold their entire body weight for long periods.


 * Probably only gibbons exceed spider monkeys in agility in the trees.


 * Acrobatic and swift, spider monkeys move through the trees, with one arm stride covering up to 40 feet (12 metres).

http://www.wellingtonzoo.com/animals/animals/primates/spider-monkey.html
 * Spider monkeys rarely descend to the ground, but are capable of bipedalism (walking on two feet) on the ground with tail held in a curve parallel to the back.

**__Offspring__**
A female is able to give birth between the ages of 4 to 5 years old, with an estrus cycle of 26 days. The birth interval is 17 to 45 months. Males are sexually mature at the age of 5 years. After a gestation period of 226-232 days, one entirely black baby is born. The baby is continuously carried by the mother, clinging to her ventrum and at about 5 months of age it will begin riding on her back. It will be dependent on its mother's milk for 2 years. http://www.honoluluzoo.org/spider_monkey.htm