New World Monkeys

“While hik­ing through rain­forests and cruis­ing along trop­i­cal rivers of Cos­ta Rica, I observed the move­ments and behav­ior of three kinds of New World mon­keys. I didn’t bring an alarm clock on that trip, but I didn’t need one. Each morn­ing, the loud, low calls of howler mon­keys woke me at the crack of dawn. As I head­ed off to break­fast, I often saw spindly spi­der mon­keys swing­ing through the tree tops, look­ing for their own morn­ing meal. One after­noon, I spot­ted a capuchin mon­key climb­ing up a tree. The lit­tle crea­ture had set its sights on a bright red panchi­ra flower, which it plucked with two fin­gers and then ate petal by petal.”