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What Type of Primate Is a Spider Monkey?

The gangly, heavy-bodied spider monkeys of the tropical Americas are among the most distinctive of primates, fully adapted to an entirely arboreal life of supreme canopy mobility and maneuverability. Their taxonomy suggests the diversity of that tantalizing order of mammals, the primates, which range from tiny, insect-eating bush babies to massive 500-lb. gorillas.

Monkeys
- The mandrill of Africa is the largest monkey in the world.
  
  Spider monkeys are part of that huge group of primates called monkeys that include better than 200 species in Central and South America, Asia, Africa and Indonesia, as well as a disjunct population of macaques in Europe. There are two other primate groups: the prosimians, which include lemurs, lorises and bush babies, and the apes, which include gibbons and siamangs as well as the hominids -- gorillas, orangutans, chimpanzees and humans. Monkeys are by far the largest category and show the most diversity of size and shape. They tend to be small- or medium-sized primates, from pint-size marmosets in South America to the burly mandrills of equatorial Africa, which may weigh better than 100 lbs. Monkeys are generally defined by large eyes and long limbs and tails, which are lacking in only a few species.
New World Monkeys
- The capuchin, like the spider monkey, is a New World monkey.
  
  The New World monkeys, of which spider monkeys are an example, belong to their own infraorder, Platyrrhini, distinct from the Old World monkeys that are part of infraorder Catarrhini along with the apes. New World monkeys likely emerged some 40 million years ago from primate ancestors drifting to the Americas on floating rafts of vegetation or from North America via a land-bridge, according to the National Zoo. Most New World monkeys have a prehensile tail that grasps tightly around branches and essentially functions as an extra arm; no Old World monkeys possess such a tail. Unlike some of their Old World relatives, New World monkeys are almost exclusively arboreal, or tree-living, and lack patches of bare skin on their rumps.
Spider Monkeys
- There are seven species of spider monkeys in the tropical Americas.
  
  There are seven species of true spider monkeys belonging to the genus Ateles, as defined by the University of Wisconsin-Madison's National Primate Research Center. All are native to southern Mexico, Central and South America. These include the black spider monkey, white-cheeked spider monkey, black-headed spider monkey, brown spider monkey, white-fronted spider monkey, Peruvian spider monkey and Geoffroy's spider monkey. The two monkeys of the genus Brachyteles, called muriquis, are occasionally called wooly spider monkeys, but are distinct.
Characteristics
- The black spider monkey, like other species, has a strongly prehensile tail.
  
  Spider monkeys get their common name from their extremely long prehensile tails and limbs: when hanging by hands, feet and tail, they can resemble massive spiders. The underside of the end of the tail has a patch of bare, callused, grooved hide that enhances the prehensile grip. Spider monkeys have lost their thumb in evolution: their highly arboreal locomotion of brachiation -- which involves swinging through the canopy using the arms -- has no use of the opposable thumb found in many other higher primates. Spider monkeys, which feed mainly on fruit, are among the heaviest New World monkeys: The biggest, the black spider monkey of northeastern South America, may weigh over 20 lbs.

Animals & Science