Quite different from the uakari is the capuchin monkey, which, of the many New World kinds, is perhaps the most common, most captured, and most captivating to human audiences. The capuchin is also the most intelligent of the platyrrhini, with a brain that is highly developed and large in proportion to the size of the animal itself. This undoubtedly accounts for the capuchin’s often being seen as an organ grinder’s playful little assistant, a sight that once was common in Europe, and to a lesser degree in North and South America.
Such capuchins were taught to distinguish between coins of different values, to show gratitude to the givers of larger coins, and to show contempt or even abuse to the givers of pennies. The stories that demonstrate this little monkey’s intelligence are numerous. They will sit with attention and watch a movie, showing reactions to animals appearing on the screen, such as fright at snakes. A capuchin can be ingenious in getting to its food, one having used a short stick to dislodge a longer stick to dislodge a still longer stick that it could use to dislodge its food from a high place.
In the wild the capuchin travels in troops of from ten to fifty or more members. It does not make a home, like the douroucouli, which may return to the same resting place several days in a row, but beds down for the night wherever the end of the day may find it.
The capuchin takes its name from the Capuchin monk, whose cowl the monkey’s head-colouring resembles. Although there are many species, differing from one another in colour, the typical capuchin is about a foot and a half long, with a slender prehensile tail a few inches longer than that. It weighs only from two to four pounds. It is found in Central and South America from Honduras to the northern tip of Argentina.
When food is plentiful the life of the capuchin in the forest seems remarkably easy. It rises with the sun and feeds busily for a few hours, and then spends a few more hours in various forms of relaxation. The younger ones play among themselves while the older ones sit and sun themselves and chatter to one another. This siesta-like interlude is interrupted for a few more hours of leisurely feeding and then is resumed when the heat of the day becomes oppressive. The capuchin diet is made up of fruit, insects, birds’ eggs, and even small birds. When angered, the capuchin arches its back and spits like a cat. It can also bark like a dog. Generally its humour is good and friendly and its disposition makes it a popular pet. Whatever it is that makes one animal friendly and another unfriendly is hard to say, but the capuchin is definitely among the friendlier animals and develops an apparent affection for men.
It may well have been a capuchin monkey that figures in this story, told by Charles Darwin in The Descent of Man. “Several years ago a keeper at the zoological gardens showed me some deep and scarcely healed wounds on the nape of his own neck, inflicted on him . . . by a fierce baboon. The little American Monkey, who was a warm friend of this keeper, lived in the same compartment and was dreadfully afraid of the great baboon. Nevertheless, as soon as he saw his friend in peril, he rushed to the rescue, and by screams and bites so distracted the baboon that the man was able to escape, after, as the surgeon thought, running great risk to his life.”
Capuchin Monkey Pictures
