Monkey Business

If you want to see monkeys outside the zoos of the world, then traveling  to Costa Rica should definitely be on your list of places to visit. 

There is absolutely no shortage of them.

Although, the resort we were staying at did have signs asking guests not to feed the animals, I noticed quite a few guests disregarded those signs.

As a matter of fact, each guest room at this resort  had a full plate of fruits awaiting the occupants' arrival. 

Of course, at least one of those fruits was a banana. 

 

Coincidence?

Anyway, the monkeys found around this particular resort are the capuchin monkeys.

Every morning, one could sit and watch several of them hanging around the guest balconies, looking for something to munch on.

Sometimes a guest would grab a fruit off their table and feed it to the monkeys.

 Notice the teeth?

Other times they would just sit, waiting for the opportunity to run into someone's open window and grab a fruit off the table as one did, while my husband was not watching.

The capuchin monkeys are one of the most intelligent monkeys around and are most commonly found in tropical forests.

They are named for their “caps” of hair, which resemble the cowls of Capuchin monks. These monkeys are round-headed and stockily built, with fully haired prehensile tails and opposable thumbs. The body is 30–55 cm (12–22 inches) long, with a tail of about the same length. Coloration ranges from pale to dark brown or black, with white facial markings in some of the four species.

Capuchins go about in noisy troops consisting of several adults and young. They frequent the tops of tall forest trees but roam throughout the vertical range of their habitat from forest floor to canopy. A troop’s home range covers 50–100 hectares (124–247 acres), and individuals travel about 3 km (1.9 miles) per day within the range. Very active during the day, these monkeys sometimes forage with squirrel monkeys, feeding on fruit, other vegetable matter, and small animals. The capuchin diet is quite broad, encompassing over 95 plant species in some areas, but palm fruits are preferred in particular by capuchins; stronger individuals even smash the nuts to get at the insides. At times, capuchins will raid plantations and farms for oranges, corn, and other food.

They are readily identified as the "organ grinder" monkey, and have been used in many movies and television shows.