Children love monkeys, one of our closest genetic relatives. They come in all sorts of strange, weird and wonderful shapes, sizes and colours but at the end of the day many of them look uncannily like little hairy versions of us with their person-like hands and feet. Their babies are super-cute too! So let’s take a look at some of the most exciting, interesting and strange monkeys on the planet and celebrate the magic of our popular monkey animal footstools.
Welcome to the weird world of monkeys
Almost 200 species of monkey mean there’s a huge variety of animals, from the tiny, weeny palm-sized Pygmy Marmoset – more about him later – to the heavyweight Mandrill whose males can hit a high of 55 kilos, a seriously big animal. So-called New World Monkeys live in Mexico, Central and South America, and Old World Monkeys live in Africa and Asia.
Marvel at five the world’s tiniest monkeys
Marmosets are some of the tiniest monkeys on earth. The littlest of all is the Pygmy Marmoset from South America. As an adult it only measures 12 to 16cm and weighs a maximum of 140g. The tail makes a difference, being 17 to 23cm long. With its orangey-brown coat and big massive eyes, it’s small enough to sit in the palm of your hand. Some people keep them as pets but that isn’t a good idea. They belong in their natural jungly homes, not in the house.
Roosmalens dwarf marmoset, AKA the black crowned marmoset, is a bit bigger and also comes from South America, just 18-22cm long with a sweet white-ringed face, olive green or dark brown fur and a pale yellowy stomach.
The Tarsier is completely adorable with its enormous googly eyes and – wait for it – an amazingly sweet singing voice! They’re also extremely shy, probably pathologically so. If you disturb, annoy, touch or mess with them they’ll commit suicide by banging their tiny heads on a hard surface. Isn’t that strange? Equally cute is the weeny Emperor Tamarin, a friendly and sociable little animal whose long white beard makes them stand out from his other appealing tamarin relatives.
Then there’s the Graells’ Tamarin, a relative of the black-mantled tamarin from the Amazon Rain Forest in Colombia, Peru and Ecuador. At only 20-30 cm long with a tail the same length, they’re have long black or deep brown fur and like us they have opposable thumbs. Giving birth twice a year, they always have twins. Isn’t that odd?
Here’s another small monkey beginning with a T: talapoins come from western and central Africa, loving life in Ethiopia, Cameroon and Angola. 32 to 45cm long with a greenish-yellow coat, white tummies and a naked face, they remind us even more of humans than most monkeys do! The fur around their bare faces is black and they have long yellow whiskers. Coming across a troop of 70 to 100 of them must be a thrilling experience. Living in big families this large and hungry means they have an unusually varied diet including everything from insects, leaves, seeds, fruit, flowers, grubs and eggs to small animals. If there are humans nearby they’ll nick crops and raid rubbish bins.
The red faced Bald Uakari – It’s no oil painting
The poor, ugly Bald Uakari monkey has a thick, glossy coat but its face is bare and bright red, not a good look at the best of times. The hairless, bright crimson face has a purpose, though, like everything else in nature. It tells the monkeys how healthy or not they are. If their face goes pale pink it means they’re poorly, and one of the most common diseases they catch is malaria. Just like us, it makes them very ill. Bald Uakaris only live in the tropical forests of Brazil and Peru, where their numbers are crashing thanks to habitat loss, deforestation and climate change. Ugly as they might be, it’ll be sad to see them go.
Oi, big nose! Meet the proboscis monkey
The Proboscis Monkey or long-nosed monkey is remarkable, a creature with a soft, dangly nose so long it hangs beneath their mouth, as long as 10cm on a male. Living happily high up in the tree canopy, it has a long tail and their white face stands out like a ghost. Their long coat can be anything from bright orange to yellow-brown with paler under-fur.
When they’re babies their faces are blue, eventually going greyer as they mature before turning white. They also have a cute beer belly, and their little feet are webbed. A frequent sight on the south east Asia island of Borneo, they live in the mangrove forests and along the coast. The proboscis monkey lives in harmony with its better-known relative, the Bornean orangutan, and as one of the region’s biggest monkeys it’s an impressive sight. Males can grow as long as three quarters of a metre.
Why the big nose? It could be a fatal attraction thing, believe it or not. Apparently the females love an extra-long nose. Or it could be the fact that the nose acts as an amplifier, making the monkey’s calls much louder.
The gorgeous Gee’s Golden Langur and Golden Snub Nose
One of a number of different sorts of langurs, Gee’s Golden langur is spectacularly ORANGE! Living in eastern India, it’s covered in beautiful golden orange fur with a dramatic jet black face and an expression so human-like it’s uncanny.
If you want to see a monkey who looks like it has had cosmetic fillers injected into its lips check out the remarkable Golden Snub Nose monkey, native to China, whose serene expression, big pink lips and funny little teddy bear ears make it unique. It’ll happily spend its life in freezing cold weather without a qualm thanks to its very thick orangey-brown fur.
The nocturnal Spix’s Night Monkey
The Spix’s night monkey wakes up just after sunset and falls back into bed before dawn, a party monkey if there ever was one. In daytime it chills out in the trees, and as sociable creatures they often share their nests with other kinds of animals. They might look cute but they’re famously aggressive. Interestingly they don’t see colour at all well, relying on seeing only in mono: black, white and grey. They live in forests across Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, and Peru, found on the north bank of the Amazon River but not on the other side.
The Japanese Macaque or ‘snow monkey’
Snow monkeys live on three of Japan’s main islands, further north than any other monkey. They’re unusually flexible, thriving in extreme heat and cold. In winter you’ll see them sitting up to their necks in the natural hot springs at Honshu, a tourist attraction all on their own, and there’s a happy colony of them living in Texas where the temperatures can get ridiculously hot.
That’s just a few of an enormous number of remarkable monkeys you’ll love to find out more about. Ans that is the beauty of our animal footstools: they’re not just a fun bit of home décor for adults and kids, they’re also an inspiration for knowledge. You never know, your child might even become the next Sir David Attenborough!
Fancy a spot of monkey business? Grab a monkey footstool!
Fancy a spot of monkey business? Grab a monkey footstool!
Children love monkeys, one of our closest genetic relatives. They come in all sorts of strange, weird and wonderful shapes, sizes and colours but at the end of the day many of them look uncannily like little hairy versions of us with their person-like hands and feet. Their babies are super-cute too! So let’s take a look at some of the most exciting, interesting and strange monkeys on the planet and celebrate the magic of our popular monkey animal footstools.
Welcome to the weird world of monkeys
Almost 200 species of monkey mean there’s a huge variety of animals, from the tiny, weeny palm-sized Pygmy Marmoset – more about him later – to the heavyweight Mandrill whose males can hit a high of 55 kilos, a seriously big animal. So-called New World Monkeys live in Mexico, Central and South America, and Old World Monkeys live in Africa and Asia.
Marvel at five the world’s tiniest monkeys
Marmosets are some of the tiniest monkeys on earth. The littlest of all is the Pygmy Marmoset from South America. As an adult it only measures 12 to 16cm and weighs a maximum of 140g. The tail makes a difference, being 17 to 23cm long. With its orangey-brown coat and big massive eyes, it’s small enough to sit in the palm of your hand. Some people keep them as pets but that isn’t a good idea. They belong in their natural jungly homes, not in the house.
Roosmalens dwarf marmoset, AKA the black crowned marmoset, is a bit bigger and also comes from South America, just 18-22cm long with a sweet white-ringed face, olive green or dark brown fur and a pale yellowy stomach.
The Tarsier is completely adorable with its enormous googly eyes and – wait for it – an amazingly sweet singing voice! They’re also extremely shy, probably pathologically so. If you disturb, annoy, touch or mess with them they’ll commit suicide by banging their tiny heads on a hard surface. Isn’t that strange? Equally cute is the weeny Emperor Tamarin, a friendly and sociable little animal whose long white beard makes them stand out from his other appealing tamarin relatives.
Then there’s the Graells’ Tamarin, a relative of the black-mantled tamarin from the Amazon Rain Forest in Colombia, Peru and Ecuador. At only 20-30 cm long with a tail the same length, they’re have long black or deep brown fur and like us they have opposable thumbs. Giving birth twice a year, they always have twins. Isn’t that odd?
Here’s another small monkey beginning with a T: talapoins come from western and central Africa, loving life in Ethiopia, Cameroon and Angola. 32 to 45cm long with a greenish-yellow coat, white tummies and a naked face, they remind us even more of humans than most monkeys do! The fur around their bare faces is black and they have long yellow whiskers. Coming across a troop of 70 to 100 of them must be a thrilling experience. Living in big families this large and hungry means they have an unusually varied diet including everything from insects, leaves, seeds, fruit, flowers, grubs and eggs to small animals. If there are humans nearby they’ll nick crops and raid rubbish bins.
The red faced Bald Uakari – It’s no oil painting
The poor, ugly Bald Uakari monkey has a thick, glossy coat but its face is bare and bright red, not a good look at the best of times. The hairless, bright crimson face has a purpose, though, like everything else in nature. It tells the monkeys how healthy or not they are. If their face goes pale pink it means they’re poorly, and one of the most common diseases they catch is malaria. Just like us, it makes them very ill. Bald Uakaris only live in the tropical forests of Brazil and Peru, where their numbers are crashing thanks to habitat loss, deforestation and climate change. Ugly as they might be, it’ll be sad to see them go.
Oi, big nose! Meet the proboscis monkey
The Proboscis Monkey or long-nosed monkey is remarkable, a creature with a soft, dangly nose so long it hangs beneath their mouth, as long as 10cm on a male. Living happily high up in the tree canopy, it has a long tail and their white face stands out like a ghost. Their long coat can be anything from bright orange to yellow-brown with paler under-fur.
When they’re babies their faces are blue, eventually going greyer as they mature before turning white. They also have a cute beer belly, and their little feet are webbed. A frequent sight on the south east Asia island of Borneo, they live in the mangrove forests and along the coast. The proboscis monkey lives in harmony with its better-known relative, the Bornean orangutan, and as one of the region’s biggest monkeys it’s an impressive sight. Males can grow as long as three quarters of a metre.
Why the big nose? It could be a fatal attraction thing, believe it or not. Apparently the females love an extra-long nose. Or it could be the fact that the nose acts as an amplifier, making the monkey’s calls much louder.
The gorgeous Gee’s Golden Langur and Golden Snub Nose
One of a number of different sorts of langurs, Gee’s Golden langur is spectacularly ORANGE! Living in eastern India, it’s covered in beautiful golden orange fur with a dramatic jet black face and an expression so human-like it’s uncanny.
If you want to see a monkey who looks like it has had cosmetic fillers injected into its lips check out the remarkable Golden Snub Nose monkey, native to China, whose serene expression, big pink lips and funny little teddy bear ears make it unique. It’ll happily spend its life in freezing cold weather without a qualm thanks to its very thick orangey-brown fur.
The nocturnal Spix’s Night Monkey
The Spix’s night monkey wakes up just after sunset and falls back into bed before dawn, a party monkey if there ever was one. In daytime it chills out in the trees, and as sociable creatures they often share their nests with other kinds of animals. They might look cute but they’re famously aggressive. Interestingly they don’t see colour at all well, relying on seeing only in mono: black, white and grey. They live in forests across Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, and Peru, found on the north bank of the Amazon River but not on the other side.
The Japanese Macaque or ‘snow monkey’
Snow monkeys live on three of Japan’s main islands, further north than any other monkey. They’re unusually flexible, thriving in extreme heat and cold. In winter you’ll see them sitting up to their necks in the natural hot springs at Honshu, a tourist attraction all on their own, and there’s a happy colony of them living in Texas where the temperatures can get ridiculously hot.
That’s just a few of an enormous number of remarkable monkeys you’ll love to find out more about. Ans that is the beauty of our animal footstools: they’re not just a fun bit of home décor for adults and kids, they’re also an inspiration for knowledge. You never know, your child might even become the next Sir David Attenborough!
Fancy a spot of monkey business? Grab a monkey footstool!