MinuteEarth

Why Only Some Monkeys Have Awesome Tails

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To learn more about this topic, start your googling with these keywords: 

  • Prehensile Tail: An animal tail that can grasp or hold objects. A wide range of animals have prehensile tails, including mammals (like opossums and kinkajous), reptiles (like chameleons), amphibians (like salamanders), and fish (seahorses).
  • Old World Monkeys (Cercopithecidae): A family of primates native to Africa and Asia that includes baboons, guenons and macaques – all of which have non-prehensile tails.
  • New World Monkeys (Platyrrhini): A family of primates native to Central and South America that includes spider monkeys, howlers, and capuchins – all of which have prehensile tails.
  • Prehensile tails evolved twice in new world monkeys: In atelines (spider monkey and howlers) the prehensile tail tip is like a finger and incredibly dextrous. In cebines (capuchin monkeys) the tip is furry and not quite as dextrous.


    • *Species featured in this video:

    Spider Monkey (and Diddy Kong!)

    Ficus insipida (tripical fig tree)

    Barbary Macaque (from Northern Africa)

    Rhesus Macaque(from India)

    Opossum

    Chameleon

    Salamander (Aneides lugubris)

    Seahorses (actually Horsea!)


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