SPIDER MONKEY

About the Spider Monkey

Did you know? Two in three guests at our remote Tambopata Research Center lodge see this limber primate!

From deep within the Peruvian rainforest, rustling leaves signal the arrival of an elusive, adorable friend: the Spider Monkey! These limber primates are a favorite sighting for our Rainforest Expeditions guests. While they can be rare elsewhere, Spider Monkeys abound at our secluded Tambopata Research Center lodge. Spider monkeys are your prototypical primate. They have long limbs, longer tails, small heads, and are very acrobatic.

Spider Monkeys hang from their tails while eating fruit, and can leap from branch to branch in what seems like short bursts of flight! Their call is a sonorous yelp that sounds almost like a wail.

Wherever they live, these cheeky primates are hard to miss. Spider monkeys (Ateles chamek), the largest monkeys in the region, are great indicators of the quality of the forest. Because they’re large (about 10 kilos or 22 pounds),  forage in the canopy (up to 35 meters or 115 feet), and they eat lots of fruit, they can only live on huge tracts of undisturbed primary forest. This makes them a sign of a healthy rainforest: forests, like our Tambopata home, with resident spider monkeys, are very healthy and biodiverse!

Spider Monkey Fun Facts

• Gender Mismatch: Spider Monkey genitalia can, ahem, confuse the casual onlooker. The monkeys with long, pale genitalia are actually the females!


• High in canopy, low in altitude: Black Spider Monkeys need to move between areas with patchy food resources like fruits and flowers. They do this in the high strata of lowland rainforests.


• Social Animals: Ever had to swipe your mom’s hand away while she tried to fix your hair or wipe something off your face? Spider Monkeys know the feeling. These primates engage in social grooming between females and their offspring, rather than between mates.


• A sign of diversity: As we mentioned before, Spider Monkeys can only live in super healthy rainforests with lots of well-preserved resources. This means that where you find Spider Monkeys, like at our Tambopata Research Center lodge, you’ll find plenty of other species! This probably means smaller monkeys, macaws, jungle pigs (peccaries), and even jaguars!

How to plan your Amazon jungle travel to see the Spider Monkey and other jungle wildlife

• Watch the canopy in lowland forests: Spider Monkeys call these parts of the forest home. Listen for rustling leaves and long limbs, and look upwards to spot these dark-furred primates. Taking a guided Monkey Walk is a great way to spot them!


• Explore with a trained guide: Visit the stunning Rainforest Expedition lodges in the Peruvian Amazon. One of our experienced guides will help you find them!


• Make science happen with AmazonCam: even if Amazon Travel is not in your short-term plans, you can connect with Amazon wildlife!  You can help us identify the Amazon wildlife on photos taken by our 20 square kilometer grid of cameras in the middle of the jungle!