The Panamanian Spider Monkeys
Final Paper: Endangered Species Paper
The Panamanian Spider Monkey
I have always been extremely interested in and moved by the scores of endangered species out there. Whether they are plants or animals, I have always been an advocate for the wild life in need. It took hours to pick which specific species I wanted to focus on for this particular project, but after much research and a personal connection, I chose the Panamanian Spider Monkey. Ever since I was a little girl I have had a special spot for monkeys. Before I understood that it was illegal to own one I begged my parents daily to get me one as a pet. Though they could not grant that particular wish of mine, they did get me a substitute. One day at the F.A.O. Schwartz in San Francisco, my mother …show more content…
surprised me with the closest thing I would get to the privilege of owning a real monkey. She bought me a stuffed animal Spider Monkey that I proceeded then to name “Tail”, and I loved him as if he were actually real.
As for the real living and breathing monkeys, the Panamanian Spider Monkey is also known as Geoffrey’s Spider Monkey, of which it is a subspecies. The Biological Classification of the Panamanian Spider Monkey starts in the Family Atelidae to Alouattinae, then to the Subfamily Atelinae, moving on to its Genus, which is Ateles, and then to the Ateles geoffroyi. The life cycle of this monkey is a relatively long one. The Spider Monkey is able to live up to 27 years in the wild, even more in captivity. The gestation period for this monkey lasts around 230 days. The infant dependency after that lasts for about 2 years, with the baby spider monkey living off of its mothers milk during this period of time. The spider monkey baby is carried by its mother on her front side for about the first five months of life, then it will transition to being carried on its mothers back. Between the ages of 24-months-old to 50-months-old, the baby will no longer cling onto its mother, but will stay close by while exploring the environment around them.
The Spider Monkey is sexually mature at around 5 to 6 years of age, and the females tend to leave their natal group upon reaching this sexual maturity. But the reproduction rate of these animals is not very high, only 1 birth every 3 years.
The Panamanian Spider Monkey has populations in Costa Rica and Panama (thus the name). The population in Costa Rica is known at 7,225, last updated in the year 2007. But the exact number or estimate of the population of the animal in Panama is unknown.
These monkeys are very social animals but they do not readily interact with many other species. They are tolerant of humans, even though humans have been known to hunt them. But their natural predators are animals such as Jaguars, Pumas, Ocelots, and large snakes, but the monkeys themselves are not carnivorous. They live off of seeds, nuts and fruits. They eat the insides of fruits and they widely prefer to eat the ripest fruits they can find. But occasionally they will eat insects, spiders, and eggs. They mainly live in the upper canopy in primary rainforests, preferring this upper canopy because it is where they get least disturbed. Their habitat also goes hand in hand with what they eat, being the fruits that are found higher up, especially those yummy ripe ones. There are many reasons why this wonderful species is endangered. Sadly, humans are one of those reasons. Hunting by humans is a large reason why they are endangered, and there are specific reasons why they have been widely hunted. The fact that they have to travel quite far to find their food means that their muscles are well developed making them a source of wild meat preferred by hunters. Another reason that this species of monkey has been a preferred target is that they are very loud and social animals, travelling in packs of up to forty monkeys at a time. These facts make it easy for hunters to find them. Unfortunately, as mentioned before, spider monkeys reproduce only every 3 years, and take a long time to become sexually mature. This makes it so that they are slow to recuperate from the pressures of hunting. Another large reason for their endangerment is habitat loss. Human population growth is the unfortunate culprit of this negative impact. People have needed more land to grow food due to more and more people and this has greatly disturbed the spider monkey habitat. The disturbance in their habitats makes the fruits that they live on less readily available. They cannot survive solely on the other things that are available for them to eat such as insects and eggs. This contributes to their endangerment.
Another unfortunate fact for these animals is that the health of their population is threatened by their incapability to search for mates outside of the region. The Panamanian Spider Monkey only resides in the limited areas of Costa Rica and Panama. With the array of threats to their species that they encounter, there are often not enough of their own species to mate successfully and often not enough to keep a healthy population, both number wise and health wise. When they do not have enough of their species to mate successfully they are not able to search for any mates outside of their region because there are no mates outside of their region. This sad fact is what makes them prone to inbreeding. Inbreeding in any species is damaging. Just as it is unhealthy for a human to reproduce with a sibling or cousin, it is unhealthy for these monkeys to inbreed. The similarities in the genetics of the monkey’s cause genetic deficiencies just as the similar genetics in a person who reproduces with their family will result in children with genetic defects. The inbreeding makes them more susceptible to sickness and this threatens their overall health. None of these negative impacts on the species are factors of natural selection seeing as these problems are not natural. They are brought upon the species by unnatural means.
The Panamanian Spider Monkey is of great importance to the world.
Aside from the fact that they are beautiful and lovable animals, they are first and foremost important to the health and natural structure of the rainforest. Because of their diet consisting of those wonderful ripe fruits, these monkeys are seed dispersers. This means that they aid in the distribution of seeds of the fruit trees that they feed from. A seed can pass through the digestive system of a monkey completely unharmed. It takes about three hours for the seed to go all the way through the digestive tract. This ample time allows the monkey to carry the seed far away from the original tree. This in the end means that the seed the monkey eventually disperses back into nature is able to grow into another fruit tree that the Panamanian Spider Monkey and the other fruit-eating animals are able to subsist on. Without this monkey’s special ability of transporting whole and unharmed seeds to other areas of the rainforest, those fruit trees would not continue to thrive in the areas where those seeds may not have reached before. This would mean less new trees growing which would be stunting the conservation and flourishing of the rainforest
habitat.
There are now a good amount of efforts to save and preserve the Panamanian Spider Monkey from further endangerment and possible extinction. Anti-hunting laws have been passed and enforced in those areas that affect the Spider Monkey. Though as with most hunting laws, enforcement does need to be more strict. There are biological reserves in both Costa Rica and Panama to protect the species and they can also be found outside of Costa Rica and Panama in many zoos worldwide. But it is what an individual can do to help the conservation of the species that is one of the most important factors in their protection. Individuals can give money to efforts for conservation. This is a very good way to for people to support the cause if they do not have the time to physically help. But to physically help protect this species, there are many things one can do. Individuals can simply spread awareness about the endangered species. People do not put enough stock by it, but awareness is something that can be a huge help in the protection of an endangered species. By letting people know, for example, the importance of the Panamanian Spider Monkey to the ecosystem, people can understand some of the reasons why it is so important to protect these animals and may be more inclined to help in their preservation in some way, however big or small. In addition to awareness, a big way to help in preserving these important animals that takes much more commitment is to volunteer on reserves and the like to help conserve the species.
Because of this project, I was reminded of the many endangered species there are out there and I have been inspired to volunteer. I have been looking into all kinds of different programs for the summer of 2012 for which I can go to a country such as Costa Rica and volunteer on the reserves and in the wild to help the endangered species of the region. I have always been sympathetic to the cause of endangered species and I want to take any chance I may have to help a species from becoming more endangered or extinct. Every animal out there, including the wonderful Panamanian Spider Monkey, has a purpose. Every one of these animals is vital to our ecosystem and the world would not be the same if any of them died out. This is why it is so important to be aware of the species of the world, their individual importance to it, and why we must work so hard to protect them. Biology would not be the same without all of these diverse species. Humans would not be the same without them.
Works Cited:
Amigos de los Monos. (2011). Species Highlight: Panamanian Red Spider Monkey.
retrieved August 24, 2011 from http://www.tarzappa.com/amigos/animals.html
Costa Rica’s Endangered Creatures. (2011). Geoffry’s Spider Monkey.
Retrieved August 24, 2011 from
http://www.brunxu.com/brunxu/default.asp?page=endangered
Community Conservation, Catalysts for Global Change. (2011). Primates of Punta Burica.
Retrieved August 24, 2011 from http://communityconservation.org/CostaRica.htm
Spider monkey. (2008, June 28). New World Encyclopedia.
Retrieved September 23, 2011 from http://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Spider_monkey?oldid=746054.
Spider Monkeys. (2011). The Website All about Spider Monkeys. Retrieved September 23, 2011 from http://spidermonkeys.com/
Utah’s Hogle Zoo. (2011). Spider Monkey. Retrieved September 23, 2011 from http://www.hoglezoo.org/meet_our_animals/animal_finder/Spider_Monkey
Spider Monkey. (2010). Habitat And Distribution Of Spider Monkeys. Retrieved September 23, 2011 from http://angrydmonkey.com/guide-habitat-distribution.html
The Panamanian Spider Monkey
I have always been extremely interested in and moved by the scores of endangered species out there. Whether they are plants or animals, I have always been an advocate for the wild life in need. It took hours to pick which specific species I wanted to focus on for this particular project, but after much research and a personal connection, I chose the Panamanian Spider Monkey. Ever since I was a little girl I have had a special spot for monkeys. Before I understood that it was illegal to own one I begged my parents daily to get me one as a pet. Though they could not grant that particular wish of mine, they did get me a substitute. One day at the F.A.O. Schwartz in San Francisco, my mother …show more content…
surprised me with the closest thing I would get to the privilege of owning a real monkey. She bought me a stuffed animal Spider Monkey that I proceeded then to name “Tail”, and I loved him as if he were actually real.
As for the real living and breathing monkeys, the Panamanian Spider Monkey is also known as Geoffrey’s Spider Monkey, of which it is a subspecies. The Biological Classification of the Panamanian Spider Monkey starts in the Family Atelidae to Alouattinae, then to the Subfamily Atelinae, moving on to its Genus, which is Ateles, and then to the Ateles geoffroyi. The life cycle of this monkey is a relatively long one. The Spider Monkey is able to live up to 27 years in the wild, even more in captivity. The gestation period for this monkey lasts around 230 days. The infant dependency after that lasts for about 2 years, with the baby spider monkey living off of its mothers milk during this period of time. The spider monkey baby is carried by its mother on her front side for about the first five months of life, then it will transition to being carried on its mothers back. Between the ages of 24-months-old to 50-months-old, the baby will no longer cling onto its mother, but will stay close by while exploring the environment around them.
The Spider Monkey is sexually mature at around 5 to 6 years of age, and the females tend to leave their natal group upon reaching this sexual maturity. But the reproduction rate of these animals is not very high, only 1 birth every 3 years.
The Panamanian Spider Monkey has populations in Costa Rica and Panama (thus the name). The population in Costa Rica is known at 7,225, last updated in the year 2007. But the exact number or estimate of the population of the animal in Panama is unknown.
These monkeys are very social animals but they do not readily interact with many other species. They are tolerant of humans, even though humans have been known to hunt them. But their natural predators are animals such as Jaguars, Pumas, Ocelots, and large snakes, but the monkeys themselves are not carnivorous. They live off of seeds, nuts and fruits. They eat the insides of fruits and they widely prefer to eat the ripest fruits they can find. But occasionally they will eat insects, spiders, and eggs. They mainly live in the upper canopy in primary rainforests, preferring this upper canopy because it is where they get least disturbed. Their habitat also goes hand in hand with what they eat, being the fruits that are found higher up, especially those yummy ripe ones. There are many reasons why this wonderful species is endangered. Sadly, humans are one of those reasons. Hunting by humans is a large reason why they are endangered, and there are specific reasons why they have been widely hunted. The fact that they have to travel quite far to find their food means that their muscles are well developed making them a source of wild meat preferred by hunters. Another reason that this species of monkey has been a preferred target is that they are very loud and social animals, travelling in packs of up to forty monkeys at a time. These facts make it easy for hunters to find them. Unfortunately, as mentioned before, spider monkeys reproduce only every 3 years, and take a long time to become sexually mature. This makes it so that they are slow to recuperate from the pressures of hunting. Another large reason for their endangerment is habitat loss. Human population growth is the unfortunate culprit of this negative impact. People have needed more land to grow food due to more and more people and this has greatly disturbed the spider monkey habitat. The disturbance in their habitats makes the fruits that they live on less readily available. They cannot survive solely on the other things that are available for them to eat such as insects and eggs. This contributes to their endangerment.
Another unfortunate fact for these animals is that the health of their population is threatened by their incapability to search for mates outside of the region. The Panamanian Spider Monkey only resides in the limited areas of Costa Rica and Panama. With the array of threats to their species that they encounter, there are often not enough of their own species to mate successfully and often not enough to keep a healthy population, both number wise and health wise. When they do not have enough of their species to mate successfully they are not able to search for any mates outside of their region because there are no mates outside of their region. This sad fact is what makes them prone to inbreeding. Inbreeding in any species is damaging. Just as it is unhealthy for a human to reproduce with a sibling or cousin, it is unhealthy for these monkeys to inbreed. The similarities in the genetics of the monkey’s cause genetic deficiencies just as the similar genetics in a person who reproduces with their family will result in children with genetic defects. The inbreeding makes them more susceptible to sickness and this threatens their overall health. None of these negative impacts on the species are factors of natural selection seeing as these problems are not natural. They are brought upon the species by unnatural means.
The Panamanian Spider Monkey is of great importance to the world.
Aside from the fact that they are beautiful and lovable animals, they are first and foremost important to the health and natural structure of the rainforest. Because of their diet consisting of those wonderful ripe fruits, these monkeys are seed dispersers. This means that they aid in the distribution of seeds of the fruit trees that they feed from. A seed can pass through the digestive system of a monkey completely unharmed. It takes about three hours for the seed to go all the way through the digestive tract. This ample time allows the monkey to carry the seed far away from the original tree. This in the end means that the seed the monkey eventually disperses back into nature is able to grow into another fruit tree that the Panamanian Spider Monkey and the other fruit-eating animals are able to subsist on. Without this monkey’s special ability of transporting whole and unharmed seeds to other areas of the rainforest, those fruit trees would not continue to thrive in the areas where those seeds may not have reached before. This would mean less new trees growing which would be stunting the conservation and flourishing of the rainforest
habitat.
There are now a good amount of efforts to save and preserve the Panamanian Spider Monkey from further endangerment and possible extinction. Anti-hunting laws have been passed and enforced in those areas that affect the Spider Monkey. Though as with most hunting laws, enforcement does need to be more strict. There are biological reserves in both Costa Rica and Panama to protect the species and they can also be found outside of Costa Rica and Panama in many zoos worldwide. But it is what an individual can do to help the conservation of the species that is one of the most important factors in their protection. Individuals can give money to efforts for conservation. This is a very good way to for people to support the cause if they do not have the time to physically help. But to physically help protect this species, there are many things one can do. Individuals can simply spread awareness about the endangered species. People do not put enough stock by it, but awareness is something that can be a huge help in the protection of an endangered species. By letting people know, for example, the importance of the Panamanian Spider Monkey to the ecosystem, people can understand some of the reasons why it is so important to protect these animals and may be more inclined to help in their preservation in some way, however big or small. In addition to awareness, a big way to help in preserving these important animals that takes much more commitment is to volunteer on reserves and the like to help conserve the species.
Because of this project, I was reminded of the many endangered species there are out there and I have been inspired to volunteer. I have been looking into all kinds of different programs for the summer of 2012 for which I can go to a country such as Costa Rica and volunteer on the reserves and in the wild to help the endangered species of the region. I have always been sympathetic to the cause of endangered species and I want to take any chance I may have to help a species from becoming more endangered or extinct. Every animal out there, including the wonderful Panamanian Spider Monkey, has a purpose. Every one of these animals is vital to our ecosystem and the world would not be the same if any of them died out. This is why it is so important to be aware of the species of the world, their individual importance to it, and why we must work so hard to protect them. Biology would not be the same without all of these diverse species. Humans would not be the same without them.
Works Cited:
Amigos de los Monos. (2011). Species Highlight: Panamanian Red Spider Monkey.
retrieved August 24, 2011 from http://www.tarzappa.com/amigos/animals.html
Costa Rica’s Endangered Creatures. (2011). Geoffry’s Spider Monkey.
Retrieved August 24, 2011 from
http://www.brunxu.com/brunxu/default.asp?page=endangered
Community Conservation, Catalysts for Global Change. (2011). Primates of Punta Burica.
Retrieved August 24, 2011 from http://communityconservation.org/CostaRica.htm
Spider monkey. (2008, June 28). New World Encyclopedia.
Retrieved September 23, 2011 from http://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Spider_monkey?oldid=746054.
Spider Monkeys. (2011). The Website All about Spider Monkeys. Retrieved September 23, 2011 from http://spidermonkeys.com/
Utah’s Hogle Zoo. (2011). Spider Monkey. Retrieved September 23, 2011 from http://www.hoglezoo.org/meet_our_animals/animal_finder/Spider_Monkey
Spider Monkey. (2010). Habitat And Distribution Of Spider Monkeys. Retrieved September 23, 2011 from http://angrydmonkey.com/guide-habitat-distribution.html