A little story about a big experience

Spider monkey experience 

After a frustrating wet and blustery morning, the afternoon was warm with scattered white clouds. With our bellies full of a delicious lunch mixed with eagerness to get into the forest to burn off some excess energy myself and fellow resident naturalist Jo threw on our jungle clothes wiggled into our wellies and took off into the jungle, with machetes in hand we headed down a very flooded trail called Laguna Chica. Our destination in mind is a section of another trail called Quebrada trail which is over 1.5Km away which needed some  attention to make suitable for walking.

 However not 100m into our journey I stop suddenly . 10 meters in front of me is a rustle in the long grass. I see nothing. Maybe a small bird like the ground dwelling Tinamou I ponder, so I advance to investigate. To my surprise what I find is nothing of the sort but instead a considerably angry snake. With its mouth wide open and its body reared up to knee height I am quite taken aback. Jo is hot on my tail and as soon as she sees the snake she recognises it immediately as the Fer-de-Lance. This is both an aggressive and venomous snake which has a striking distance the length of its body. Knowing this Jo encourages me to back away and without hesitation I do as she says. And with great luck it whips away and slithers into the under growth. With eye brows raised and now my mouth open I turn to Jo. Wow. She explained to me it was a Fer de lance and I realise I could have been in serious  danger if it had decided to strike. My heart pounding I was thrilled to have just experienced my first  Fer de lance. Being so close to the lodge we decide to head back to refer to our reptile guide book to check our sighting. The book confirmed our finding.

 Still buzzing from that encounter with a deadly snake we head back into the jungle for a second time this time being stopped at 500meters by a loud crash high in the canopy to my left. I pace around the corner to get a better look at “the noise” and there it was eliminated from behind casting a great silhouette of a ... well at first I was unsure.  My thoughts go into over drive considering all the possibilities. Surely too big to be a Red Howler monkey and black howlers do not exist in this area. Then it moved. That is the moment I knew. Spider Monkey! Its locomotion between the trees is undeniable and confirmed its presence. Swinging from branch to branch using swift elegant movements of its long slender arms, and extremely strong prehensile tail it can only be one primate. This primate is the only monkey in its geographic range that is large, black and has a prehensile tail and uses its arms to swing from branch to branch. Eyes wide, Jaw dropped for the second time that afternoon I turn to Jo with a shocked expression. To my delight she is mirroring my expression as she too has come to the same conclusion. In stunned silence we stand in awe taking in this magnificent primate. Keeping a safe distance high in the canopy the spider monkey semi circled around us making sure at all points it could still see us. Just by the way it was looking at us could you tell it was an intelligent creature. It didn’t just look at you it really looked at you, it felt it was acknowledging your existence on earth as much as it is aware of its own existence. It obviously felt alarmed by our presence because it was making loud defensive barks sounds as well as hanging onto branches with its forearms and shaking it aggressively sending fruit, seeds and twigs catapulting towards us. Recognising these alarm signals from other primates in the area such as the curious brown capuchin monkey Jo and I retreated and headed back the lodge for a refreshing cold celebratory beer.

 This sighting is brilliant news for the lodge and the surrounding forest as spider monkeys were previously thought to be extinct in the immediate area and this sighting suggests that there is still a possibility that spider monkeys are still living close by. These are large primates: a head and body size between 416 – 582 mm an incredibly long tail length that would exceed head and body length ranging between 680mm – 899mm and weight  of 5.9kg to 10.4kg. These monkeys live in troops with 20 – 40 members however often split into small foraging groups of 1-9 but will decrease further when food is scarce and reunite when food becomes abundant again. Their diet consists mostly of ripe fruits but will occasionally feed on dead wood and leaves. Spider monkeys have large home ranges of 150ha to 250ha. Group composition generally consists of 3 times as many female adults as males in a group. Reproduction in spider monkeys is low. Females are mature and are old enough to give birth at 4-5 years of age and will only have young every 3-4 years thereafter. Hunting and deforestation across the Amazon is increasing pressures on survival for the spider monkey and they are stated as endangered by the IUCN. Over hunting of this animal for its meat has significantly reduced its number in this area and its recovery rate is very slow due to the low reproduction as described above. It is therefore important to protect this species for the future individuals to be able to repopulate.