Holy Osculating Owl Monkeys, Batman!
Given the various wtf posts about tarsiers, and marmosets, and glowing rhesus macaques, here's one about a genus of primates you might not have heard about before.
Douroucoulis, small South American primates also known as Night Monkeys, & Owl Monkeys, of the genus Aotus. Aotus means earless, and their ears are indeed quite small. On the other hand, they do have large eyes, because they're the world's only nocturnal monkeys. There are plenty of nocturnal prosimians out there - tarsiers, galagos, aye-ayes, lorises, and so on, but only the Aotidae have gone back to nocturnalism from amongst the true monkeys. They're so specialised to feed and move at night they've lost all their colour vision.
( Collapse )
Douroucoulis, small South American primates also known as Night Monkeys, & Owl Monkeys, of the genus Aotus. Aotus means earless, and their ears are indeed quite small. On the other hand, they do have large eyes, because they're the world's only nocturnal monkeys. There are plenty of nocturnal prosimians out there - tarsiers, galagos, aye-ayes, lorises, and so on, but only the Aotidae have gone back to nocturnalism from amongst the true monkeys. They're so specialised to feed and move at night they've lost all their colour vision.
( Collapse )