Encounters with Animals Part 1: Monkeys

Langa, she is an old world monkey, you can tell by her tail

Part 1: Monkeys

The day after our anniversary we decided to continue the romance by visiting monkeys. Almost across the street from our cabin was Monkeyland, a home for wayward monkeys. Monkeys that need a home, like former pets, retired lab monkeys and other monkeys in need, go to live in Monkeyland’s enclosure. These guys and gals will never be able to be released in the wild since they have never lived with predators and would be prey almost immediately. Monkeyland is the next best thing to real freedom. They are in a forest where they can swing, climb, eat grubs, play with their friends and do other monkey things, but they have a fence that protects them from predators and they have tables set our with monkey-happy food. In exchange for this life of luxury, Monkeyland Monkeys share their space with gap mouthed giggling tourists. The tourists get some quality monkey time, as well as education about monkeys, and why, really, no really, you don’t want them as pets, and monkeys get dinner and monkey rehabilitation. All in all a good system.

Really cute Squirrel Monkey.

These I wanted to take home with me. See last paragraph to find out why I didn't

Because these monkeys have had way too much contact with humans (that is why they are now in a home for humanized monkeys after all), they are not afraid of humans. That is how it came to happen that I needed to jump back to avoid a Gibbon walking straight into me.(see Gibbon videos) Visitors are brought in as groups, with a guide who walks them around the large enclosure and tells them about the monkeys. On our tour we learned about the difference between a monkey and an apes (tails) and the differences between old world monkeys and new world monkeys. Old world monkeys hang out more on the ground and they have tails for balance, new world monkeys spend more time in trees and have prehensile tails (courtesy of wikipedia: Prehensility is the quality of an appendage or organ that has adapted for grasping or holding. The word is derived from the Latin term prehendere, meaning "to grasp."). I have always wanted a prehensile tail, so, I think I would be a new world monkey.

This is a lemur: prosimian-- ie not yet a simian. Gotta love that island evolution

A few weeks ago I promised myself I would write less about weird animal penises on this blog. Good decorum and all. For example I didn’t write about the massive prehensile penis of the elephant we saw in Chobe that when full out looked and moved like a second trunk. See, I have manners. But, then, in Monkeyland this dude comes and shows off his balls, and basically poses for some nice playgirl shots. I couldn’t resist.

Yeah, you are seeing that right.

What is that ACDC song about big balls? Could we change it to Blue balls?

Vervet Monkeys (the kind that lived near our cabin and woke me up each morning) have blue balls. The rest of them is kind of gray and boring, so they make up for it in the scrotum department.

We also met Tarzan and his wife Jane. Tarzan and Jane are married kateforgetsthename Monkeys that worked as a team. Jane would distract the guests eating at monkey land café, and Tarzan would swipe their burgers. Then they would share the proceeds. Using this system Tarzan and Jane got very fat. Apparently, like humans, monkeys don’t do well when they eat too many burgers. Eventually Monkeyland put Tarzan and Jane into a special cage away from people and their food. They didn’t seem particularly happy about this. Looking at Tarzan I thought about the last few scenes of Supersize Me.

Would you like to know why you don’t want one of these cute monkeys as a pet? I bet you would. They mark their territory by peeing on their hands and wiping it on their territory. So if they think their territory is inside your house they will pee on their hands and wipe it on your walls and furniture. Not so cute any more are they???