Article by Reese Xayamaca Graham (UNIS)
Classification
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It's common name is the Black-Headed Spider Monkey, its scientific name is Ateles fusciceps. The black headed spider monkey its kingdom is animal, its phylum is chordata because it has a tail, its class is mammal because the baby is brought to the world with live birth. Its order is primates,its family is Atelidade, its genus is Ateles, and its species is fusciceps.
The SpiderMonkey environment
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The Spider Monkey environment is almost completely trees, thats why their limbs are so long so they can swing from tree to tree easily. They can be found in the tropical jungles of Mexico, South America, and Columbia. They usually reside in the highest part of the trees because they can easily swing and jump across trees because of their extremely long limbs.
Evolution's of the Spider Monkey
How the spider monkey has evolved is something you can see at first sight, it's their disproportionately long limbs. Since the Spider Monkey lives in very high trees it needs its long limbs to jump and reach from place to place (as seen in picture). Spider Monkeys also have a normal diet of fruits, nuts, and rarely, bugs and leaves.
Dangers to the Black-Headed Spider Monkey
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The main problem for the Spider Monkey is not really a natural problem its deforestation, and poachers. Poachers are easily able to capture spider monkeys by putting a rare nut that they like in narrow container. The monkeys see it and try to grab it, the container is just big enough so they can grab the nut in the container but not get their hands out. Then the hunters come back and put them in a bag. Deforestation has been a big problem for a long time and is a big threat to the Spider Monkey.
History of the Spider Monkey
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The history of the Spider Monkey isn't as well known as some animal evolution's (example: homo sapien evolution). The early ancestors of the spider monkey did not have such a long tail and limbs, at this stage they were still developing these evolution's,but these developments were obvious for their future because they live in such high trees. A ancestor of the spider monkey would be the species from Pleistocene in the Caribbean and Brazil brought to places like Columbia by natives, otherwise there is no specific species (except for the woolie spider monkey). The evolution was a simple but completely necessary step in there survival, them adapting to the high places they live in and getting longer limbs made it easy for them to climb from tree to tree and continue their species.
Future evolution's of the Spider Monkey
I believe a big evolution that the spider monkey will have is being able to chose the size of their hands, limbs, and feet. Since many poachers are killing and threatening them sudden changes like being able to contract and extend muscles whenever they want would be useful, because then they could get the bait the poachers set for them while still escaping.