Wildlife Guatemala – 10 Things You Didn’t Know About White-Faced Capuchin Monkeys

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White-Faced Capuchin Monkeys are small and inquisitive new world monkeys and the easiest to observe in the wild. They are always around jumping from tree to tree. In Guatemala they are seen in forests along the Atlantic Coast. There are also populations of these monkeys in Honduras and Costa Rica.

Here are some things you didn’t know about them:

1. They are arboreal and onmivorous. You will always see them traveling through the trees looking for fruits and insects.

2. The back and top of their head is black, but has creamy white on the sides and belly. The ends of the limbs are also black. The face is white, with the forehead hairs longer.

3. Capuchin monkeys are active in the daytime, and live in groups of 3-30, including at least one male.

4. They frequently groom each other and have complex social lives with alliances made between different individuals.

5. The groups are not territorial but are aggressive to members of other groups. They spend most of their time in the forest canopy and sometimes on the ground.

6. It takes around 2 years before the young capuchin monkey is independent and the mother can breed again.

7. White-faced capuchins play an important role in seed dispersal, influencing forest regeneration.

8. These guys are hunted for food and commonly kept as pets and collected in zoos. Most capuchins in zoos are bred in captivity, few are from the wild.

9. When predators approach, white-faced capuchins use trill vocalizations to coordinate movement in the group.

10. These beautiful mammals can be found in forests and mangroves up to 2,100m elevation.