Diversity

The genus Ateles is made up of 7 extant species of spider monkeys, and includes numerous subspecies. Spider monkeys cover a broad range of Central and South American rainforests. The species are very similar to one another in terms of behavior and physical appearance, and the exact phylogeny is still being worked out among them. Spider monkeys are culturally significant to humans, and every species of them is threatened with extinction.

Geographic Range

Spider monkeys range from the northern part of Mexico all the way through to northern Bolivia. They are commonly found in the Amazon rainforest. Each of the seven species lives in their own region, without much overlap between them. However, habitat loss and fragmentation have played a major role in decreasing their distribution.

• Biogeographic Regions
• neotropical neotropical
  • native native

Habitat

Spider monkeys live in tropical rainforests, where they have wide home ranges in order to find an abundance of fruit. Some species do live in semi-deciduous forests. Spider monkeys choose their range based on water resources, climate, their ability to defend the area, and predation risk. They primarily live in the tree canopy of many types of trees, where they are off the ground to avoid some predation, and where there is an abundance of fruit. They have been known to be on the ground in order to travel, eat, drink, and play for short periods of time.

• Habitat Regions
• tropical tropical
• terrestrial terrestrial

• Terrestrial Biomes
• rainforest rainforest

Systematic and Taxonomic History

Genus Ateles has 7 extant species, with many subspecies. It is most closely related to Brachyteles and Lagothrix , which are woolly monkeys. The genus was originally named Ameranthropoides in 1799, but the name was changed to Ateles in 1806. There is much debate about how the 7 species evolved from one another, and if some of them should be combined into one species. They were originally grouped based off of morphological characteristics, such as pelage color and hair length. Over time, researchers have grouped them based off of other factors, such as genetic data and phylogenetic analysis. Each of these methods led to different results, but most approaches agree that Ateles paniscus is the basal taxon of the genus. However, even this is still up for debate.

Physical Description

Spider monkeys have short faces, and small heads. They have a long, thin tail and limbs, with a larger torso. Their fingers are long and hooked for grabbing, and their long tails are used for suspensory locomotion. Spider monkeys are typically black, and have pale eye patches. There is evidence in Ateles paniscus of sexual dimorphism, where the females are larger than the males, but there isn't evidence of this in the other species.

• Other Physical Features
• endothermic endothermic
• bilateral symmetry bilateral symmetry

• Sexual Dimorphism
• sexes alike

Reproduction

Females and males both use grooming as a method of attracting a mate. Males typically look at and smell female genitalia to initiate copulation, and females seek out a male partner at certain times during their ovarian cycles. Most of the mating is done with one high-ranking male, but females can have multiple partners. It just depends on the specific group of males. In order to secure mates, male groups guard certain territories from other male groups if that is where individual female home ranges are.

• Mating System
• polygynous polygynous
• polygynandrous (promiscuous) polygynandrous (promiscuous)

Spider monkeys reach sexual maturity between 4 and 5 years old. Their gestation period lasts between 7 to 7.5 months, and weaning occurs between 1 and 2 years of age. The number of offspring per breeding season can vary, and they can breed at any point during the year. Typically, they only mate once every 2 to 4 years.

• Key Reproductive Features
• iteroparous iteroparous
• year-round breeding year-round breeding
• gonochoric/gonochoristic/dioecious (sexes separate)
• sexual sexual
• fertilization fertilization
• viviparous viviparous

Spider monkey offspring are cared for by the female. The mother and her children live in a separate home range from the males. Offspring typically stay with the mother until two years old, when males find their own groups and females find their own territory.

• Parental Investment
• female parental care female parental care
• pre-hatching/birth
  • provisioning
    • female
  • protecting
    • female
• pre-weaning/fledging
  • provisioning
    • female
  • protecting
    • female
• pre-independence
  • provisioning
    • female
  • protecting
    • female
• extended period of juvenile learning

Lifespan/Longevity

There is some uncertainty about spider monkey lifespan in the wild, but it seems to range between 20 and 25 years. They live about 40 years in captivity.

Behavior

Spider monkeys are very social animals. Males live in large groups with some hierarchy. The males spend more time with each other than with females, so the hierarchy is necessary to prevent disagreements. Males also stay in the same group that they were born in, but females leave their groups and spend most of their lives on their own or with offspring. The home ranges of different groups overlap, and encounters between groups can be aggressive. In general, spider monkeys are most active in the morning and evening, and rest during the afternoon and night. There is some evidence that spider monkeys, specifically Ateles geoffroyi , use tools for body care. Spider monkeys also use their tails in order to get food that may be out of reach otherwise. There is evidence in Ateles fusciceps that their tail use is lateralized, meaning that they favor using their tail to one side over the other.

• Key Behaviors
• arboreal arboreal
• scansorial
• diurnal diurnal
• motile motile
• nomadic nomadic
• social social
• colonial colonial
• dominance hierarchies dominance hierarchies

Communication and Perception

Spider monkeys have a wide range of vocalizations that they use to communicate with one another. They have an alarm call that sounds like a dog bark to warn for predators, and other longer distance calls to communicate. To communicate with other members of their group, they have "chuckles." They also rely on touch, such as grooming one another, to create social bonds. Spider monkeys also have a stronger sense of smell than people usually believe. They can use smell to pick out ripe fruits. Research was done that demonstrated that even with smells meant to distract from the ripeness, spider monkeys were still able to detect which fruits were ripe and which were not. However, most of their perception of their environment still comes from sight.

• Communication Channels
• tactile tactile
• acoustic acoustic

• Perception Channels
• visual visual
• tactile tactile
• chemical chemical

Food Habits

Spider monkeys are herbivores, so they eat predominantly leaves and fruits. They consume from plants that are abundant in their habitat, so there is not one kind of leaves or fruit that they eat. They do have some preferences, which leads them to move to different parts of their home ranges during different times of the year depending on what plants are most abundant in what area. This behavior has been studied in Ateles geoffroyi and Ateles chamek .

• Primary Diet
• herbivore herbivore
  • folivore folivore
  • frugivore frugivore

Predation

Spider monkey's are mainly predated on by humans for their meat and body parts. Due to their large size, being off the ground, and forming subgroups, it is difficult for other animals to predate on them. However, there have been known instances of predation on spider monkeys by pumas ( Puma concolor ), jaguars( Panthera onca ), crested eagles( Morphus guianensis ), and harpy eagles( Harpia harpyja ). Spider monkeys use a bark call to alert their groups to a predator's presence, and to tell the predator that they have been seen. Due to their low predation risk, a lot of their other possible predator avoidance behaviors haven't been observed.

Ecosystem Roles

Due to spider monkeys being herbivorous and having large ranges, they play a large role in seed dispersal in their habitats. This allows for plants to travel to different areas for growth, and for plant diversity to be maintained. When spider monkeys defecate, the seeds typically come out whole, which is important for the growth and spread of large seeded trees. They also eat fruit from a variety of different trees, which helps with the spread of tree diversity. A research study found that the trees and plants they consume from and disperse the most are Chrysochlamys membranacea , Pourouma minor , Pseudolmedia rigida , Tetragas-tris varians , and genus Ossaea .

• Ecosystem Impact
• disperses seeds
• creates habitat

Economic Importance for Humans: Positive

Spider monkeys are important to the cultures of the people who live in their habitat, such as in their artwork and stories. They are also a source of meat, and their body parts have been used for making clothing and accessories.

• Positive Impacts
• pet trade pet trade
• food food
• body parts are source of valuable material

Economic Importance for Humans: Negative

Spider monkeys typically try to stay away from humans as much as possible, so there aren't many instances of negative interaction. Spider monkeys can carry diseases, but there isn't much evidence of transmittance to humans because of the low amount of interaction.

• Negative Impacts
• injures humans
  • causes disease in humans causes disease in humans
• causes or carries domestic animal disease causes or carries domestic animal disease

Conservation Status

The populations of all spider monkey species are in decline, and range from vulnerable to critically endangered. They have been victims of habitat fragmentation, habitat destruction(roads, houses, etc), deforestation, and hunting. These events also trigger a stress response, which leads to decreased individual animal health and lower population viability. There is a lot of action being taken to try to stop the population decline, such as establishing nature reserves and putting protections in place, but there is a lack of funding and commitment so efforts are slow.

IUCN Red List [Link]

Not Evaluated

Additional Links

Encyclopedia of Life

Contributors

Bri Hinchliffe (author), Colorado State University, Audrey Bowman (editor), Colorado State University.

References

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