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List of Types of Monkeys in the Amazon

The Amazon, a rainforest covering nearly 40 percent of South America, encompasses the area including and surrounding the Amazon River and its tributaries. Life is abundant, with around 30 percent of the world's species found there. Over 300 types of mammal live in the Amazon, including a wide variety of monkey species that rely on the plentiful plant life for food and shelter.

Squirrel Monkeys
- Birds are the greatest predators of squirrel monkeys.
  
  Easily adaptable to a variety of rainforest habitats, this type of monkey lives throughout most of the amazon and can even be found in forest areas that have been disturbed by human intervention. They are small monkeys, usually weighing less than three pounds and not reaching more than 12.5 inches. Their tails reach around 16 inches, but are not used to assist them in movement, unlike most of the monkeys in the Amazon. Known by their yellow legs and grayish coats with varying amounts of yellow depending on the season, these small monkeys usually live between the canopy, or top layer of the rainforest, and the forest floor where they dine mostly on fruit and insects.
Howler Monkeys
- Because of their size, howler monkeys are often hunted for their meat.
  
  Named for their distinctive calls that can be heard up to three miles away, the howler monkey is the largest of the Amazonian monkeys, weighing anywhere from 15 to 22 pounds and standing two to three feet tall. Their color ranges from brown to black to red and they live in groups of up to 20. A tail nearly the same length as their body allows them to access leaves, their primary food source. The howler monkey is the only Amazonian monkey able to see in full color, making them more able to identify better food sources. The Red-Handed Howler Monkey sometimes ingests soil as a supplement to its diet when food supplies are low during dry seasons.
Tamarin
- Cotton-top tamarins have been known to eat small reptiles.
  
  The most identifying feature of this type of monkey is its unusual appearance, from the cotton-top tamarin's white puff of fur on top of its head, to the Emperor Tamarin's mustache-like facial fur. This variety splits the tamarins into three groups: bare face, hairy face and mottled face. This is a very small monkey that usually weighs less than a pound, with some species weighing up to two pounds. Because tamarins eat many types of fruit, they are crucial for seed distribution in the Amazon. Many of the seeds that pass through their digestive system are larger than those passed by any other primate in this region, making these monkeys important for the survival of types of plants with larger seeds.

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