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Alouatta palliata

(Golden-Mantled Howling Monkey)

Overview

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Interesting Facts

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Common Names

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Click on the language to view common names.

Common Names in English:

Golden-Mantled Howling Monkey, Ecuadorian Mantled Howling Monkey, Mantled Howler, mantled howler monkey, South Pacific Blackish Howling Monkey

Common Names in Spanish:

Aullador De La Costa, Mono Aullador, Mono Congo, Saraguato de manto

Description

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Habitat

Typically found at an altitude of 0 to 1,457 meters (0 to 4,780 feet).[1]

Ecology: This species occupies a number of vegetation types and can be found in seasonal and nonseasonal forests , and in mangroves and swamps (Baumgarten and Williamson 2007). According to the last authors , A. palliata does not occur above 2,000 m , and most of its montane localities are at lower elevations .

The howler monkeys are the large leaf-eaters of the South American primate communities. Like the spider monkeys, they are prehensile-tailed, with a naked patch of skin on the under surface at the tip . Howler monkeys have small incisors and large, sexually dimorphic canines. The molar teeth are particularly adapted for their chewing leaves through shearing. Their most characteristic feature is the deep jaws which surround the enlarged larynx and hyoid apparatus, a resonating chamber. It is with this enlarged and highly specialized voice box that they produce their howls (grunts , roars and barks ). Howling sessions , usually involving the entire group, can be heard particularly in the early morning and are audible at distances of 1–2 kms (Drubbel and Gautier, 1993). The red howlers (A. seniculus, A. macconnelli, A. juara, A. puruensis, and A. sara) have the largest voice boxes and the deepest roars, while the Mexican, Central American and northern Colombian mantled howlers, A. palliata and A. pigra, have the smallest, and their howls are more high pitched as a result.

The Mantled Howler Monkey is exceptional in the genus in that it may form large groups of more than 40 individuals, with a number of breeding males, although group size is generally less, averaging 14. For the other species, 14 is a large group, and they can usually be seen numbering four or five or up to 11 or so individuals. In the red howlers, there is usually only one dominant male in the group (occasionally two), others being sub-adults, or juveniles , along with a harem of two to five females. Unlike the spider monkeys, and related to the large proportion of leaves in the diet (up to 50% of the annual diet), the howler monkeys generally have quite small and broadly overlapping home ranges , of 5 ha up to 45 ha, depending on the type of habitat (Neville et al. 1988). The large groups of A. palliata may have home ranges extending to 60 ha (Estrada 1982), whereas in the llanos of northern Venezuela, home ranges of A. arctoidea can be as small as 4 ha (Sekulic 1982a).

Howlers are the only New World primates which regularly include mature leaves in their diet, although softer, less fibrous , young leaves are preferred when they are available. Their folivory and ability to eat mature leaves is undoubtedly one of the keys to their wide distribution and the wide variety of vegetation types they inhabit. Mature fruit is the other important food item, especially wild figs (Ficus) in many regions, but they also eat leaf petioles , buds, flowers (sometimes seasonally very important), seeds, moss, stems and twigs , and termitaria. Red howler monkeys have also been seen to eat and lick clay at so-called “salado” sites in the Colombian Amazon (Izawa 1975). The reason for this and the consumption of soil from termitaria is still not clearly understood, but may involve the need for certain minerals, or may be due to the properties of clay which, by adsorption , can reduce the effects of toxins ingested with leaves.

The diet of A. macconnelli has been studied by Mittermeier and van Roosmalen (1981) in Suriname and more recently during a long-term study in the Nouragues Field Station in French Guiana (Julliot and Sabatier 1993; Julliot 1994b,c, 1996a,b). It feeds mainly on soft parts of many different kinds of fruits, as well as flowers and young leaves. Also included in the diet are mature leaves, immature fruits, moss, bark, and the soil of termitaria. Julliot and Sabatier (1993) recorded the use of 195 plant species from 47 families. Seeds are ingested but only rarely eaten. As a result Alouatta, like Ateles, is an important seed disperser. Julliot (1996a) found that A. macconnelli dispersed the seeds of more than 95% of more than 100 plant species (especially Sapotaceae) from which they eat fruit over the two years of her observations.

Infant Alouatta are probably born throughout the year in Suriname, but data are not yet sufficient to determine if there is a birth peak. In Suriname, newborn infants have been seen in March, April, and November, and January (Mittermeier 1977). Crockett and Rudran (1987a,b) examined seasonal variation in births in red howlers from northern Venezuela, and found that they were less frequent during the early wet season (weaning would occur at the time of greatest food shortage). The llanos forests are more seasonal, however, than in the Guianas, and it is possible that this is not the case elsewhere. Oestrus lasts 2–4 days, with intervals between oestrous periods of about 17 days. Interbirth intervals are generally about 16.6 months, although they may be shortened by the death of an infant to about 10.5 months (Crockett and Sekulic 1984).

Size (see Glander (2006) for a discussion of body weight in mantled howling monkeys):
Adult male weight 7.15 kg (n=110+) (Peres 1994)
Adult female weight 5.35 kg (n=177+) (Peres 1994).

Costa Rica
Adult male weight 6.53 kg (n=14) (Glander et al. 1991)
Adult female weight 5.35 kg (n=18) (Glander et al. 1991).

Panama
Adult male weight 7.8 kg (n=15) (Thorington Jr. et al. 1979)
Adult female weight 6.6 kg (n=15) (Thorington Jr. et al. 1979)
See Glander (2006) for a discussion of body weight in mantled howling monkeys.[2].

List of Habitats:

Taxonomy

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Notes

Name Status: Accepted Name .

Last scrutiny: 30-Jul-2002

The taxonomy of the howlers of Mesoamerica and the Caribbean and Pacific coasts of Colombia and Ecuador is based on Lawrence (1933), Hill (1962), Hall (1981), Froehlich and Froehlich (1986, 1987), and Cortés-Ortiz et al. (2002). Groves (2001, 2005) recognized only A. palliata (Gray, 1849) (no subspecies ), A. pigra (Lawrence, 1933), and A. coibensis Thomas, 1902 (no subspecies). Rylands et al. (2006) reviewed the taxonomy and distributions of Alouatta palliata, A. coibensis and A. pigra.

Using mtDNA markers , Cortés-Ortiz et al. (2002) found that Alouatta palliata and A. coibensis comprise a very closely related and monophyletic group of mtDNA lineages. The mitochondrial DNA divergence between the nominal species A. palliata and A. coibensis is very low, showing only 0.1% sequence divergence, more than an order of magnitude fewer nucleotide substitutions than were observed between any other pair of Alouatta species. Divergence between A. palliata and A. coibensis is similar to mitochondrial DNA distances observed between geographically separated populations within each of these two species. Rylands et al. (2006) maintained the taxonomy suggested by Froehlich and Froehlich (1987) for the forms from the Azuero Peninsula (A. coibensis coibensis) and Island of Coiba (Panama) (A. c. trabeata), but it is evident that the findings of the molecular genetic analyses of Cortés-Ortiz (2002) would relegate them to synonyms of A. palliata. Groves (2001, 2005) listed A. coibensis Thomas, 1902, with trabeata Lawrence, 1933, as a junior synonym.[2].

Similar Species

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Members of the genus Alouatta

ZipcodeZoo has pages for 32 species and subspecies in this genus:

A. arctoidea (Ursine Howler Monkey) · A. belezebul (Red-Handed Howler Monkey) · A. belzebul (Black-And-Red Howler Monkey) · A. belzebul belzebul (Black-And-Red Howler Monkey) · A. belzebul discolor (Red-Handed Howling Monkey) · A. belzebul ululata (Red-Handed Howling Monkey) · A. caraya (Black-And-Gold Howler Monkey) · A. coibensis (Coiba Island Howling Monkey) · A. discolor (Spix's Red-Handed Howler Monkey) · A. fusca (Brown Howler) · A. fusca fusca (Brown Howler Monkey) · A. guariba (Brown Howler Monkey) · A. guariba clamitans (Southern Brown Howler Monkey) · A. guariba guariba (Northern Brown Howler Monkey) · A. juara (Juru? Red Howler Monkey) · A. macconnelli (Guianan Red Howler Monkey) · A. nigerrima (Black Howler Monkey) · A. palliata (Golden-Mantled Howling Monkey) · A. palliata aequatorialis (Ecuadorian Mantled Howler Monkey) · A. palliata coibensis (Coiba Island Howler Monkey) · A. palliata mexicana (Mexican Howler Monkey) · A. palliata palliata (Golden Mantled Howler Monkey) · A. palliata trabeata (Azuero Howler Monkey) · A. pigra (Yucat?n Black Howler Monkey) · A. puruensis (Pur?s Red Howler Monkey) · A. sara (Bolivian Red Howling Monkey) · A. seniculus (Colombian Red Howler Monkey) · A. seniculus insulanus (Trinidad Howling Monkey) · A. seniculus juara (Juru) · A. seniculus seniculus (Colombian Red Howling Monkey) · A. ululata (Maranh?o Red-Handed Howler Monkey) · A. villosa (Howler)

More Info

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Further Reading

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Notes

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Contributors

Data Sources

Accessed through GBIF Data Portal February 29, 2008:

Identifiers

Footnotes

  1. Mean = 288.530 meters (946.621 feet), Standard Deviation = 712.740 based on 15 observations. Altitude information for each observation from British Oceanographic Data Centre. [back]
  2. Cuarón, A.D., Shedden, A., Rodríguez-Luna, E., de Grammont, P.C., Link, A., Palacios, E. & Morales, A. 2008. Alouatta palliata. In: IUCN 2011. IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. Version 2011.2. <www.iucnredlist.org>. Downloaded on 30 January 2012. [back]
Last Revised: 2012-07-14