Aotus trivirgatus

The night monkey (scientific name: Aotus trivirgatus) is also known as Douroucouli and Night Monkey in foreign languages. There is no subspecies. The night monkey is like an owl and is active at night, so it is also called owl monkey or owl monkey. At night, it relies on its unique eyes to find food.

Night monkeys have a very diverse diet, eating wild fruits, insects, snails, tree frogs, bird eggs, and honey. But they eat very carefully, always checking the food in front of their eyes before eating. When eating insects, they quietly pinch the wings of the insect with the thumb and index finger of their hand, and then break the insect's neck with the same two fingers of the other hand, and then eat it slowly. Night monkeys spend most of their time in the tree canopy 30 meters above the ground. Males and females live together, and the males are responsible for defending the territory.

When the night monkey sits upright, its head is lowered, its back is bent into an arch, its hands are placed under its chest, its feet are bent inward, and only its tail is exposed. From a distance, it looks like a fluffy ball. If it didn't have that dense "fur coat", its naked streamlined body would look like a "fish". The night monkey has a long ankle joint, a broad big toe on its foot, and the other four toes are opposite, which is very special. Its fingers are slender, and the length ratio between the fingers is similar to that of humans. There are fingerprints on the huge pads at the end of the fingers. The hair of the night monkey is light brown-gray, mixed with some olive green. This is its clever camouflage in the tree.

The calls of night monkeys are complex and varied, which is amazing. They can not only make "chirp chirp" screams, but also make "rumble" sounds like thunder and "bang bang" sounds like beating gongs. Their calls are sometimes high and sometimes low, and they are varied, causing loud echoes in the dense forest. This complex and varied call is very unique in the monkey family.

Night monkeys are very sensitive animals. They react strongly to sudden movements and sounds. Especially when they are napping or sleeping, they will jump up and run quickly when they encounter stimulation. If they encounter other animals blocking them, they will bite them with their mouths open.

Family groups consist of 2-5 individuals, including a pair of adult monkeys and their offspring from the past three years. The gestation period is 150-153 days, and the baby monkey weighs 80 grams at birth. Sexual maturity is reached at 2 years old. Night monkeys that are loyal to love have stronger reproductive capacity than those with multiple partners.

Listed in the 2008 Red List of Endangered Species of the World Conservation Union (IUCN) ver 3.1 - Least Concern (LC).

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Distributed in Brazil (Amazon River Basin, Pará, Rondonia), Venezuela.
It lives in tropical rainforests of South America, and is found at altitudes from sea level to 2100 meters. Night monkeys are nocturnal and arboreal animals, sleeping during the day in tree holes or tree nests in wooden vines.

The head and body length of the night monkey is 240-370 mm, and the tail length is 316-400 mm. It weighs 0.6-1.0 kg. It looks very strange, with a body as big as a squirrel and very slender limbs. It is covered with dense hair, the silver-gray fur is soft and dense, the upper body is mixed with gray and dark gray, and the lower body is light yellow or brown. The face of the night monkey has short and sparse hair, and the tail is very strong, like a stick dragging behind it, which cannot be grasped. The unique symbol of the night monkey is its pair of eyes, which can be regarded as unique in the animal world. Its eyes have four characteristics: the face has large round eyes, which are surprisingly large; the irises of the eyes show a beautiful mixture of red, yellow and brown colors, there are white chin hairs around the eyes, and brown and black forehead hairs above the eyes, which complement each other and look even more beautiful; the eyeballs are bulging, and the surface of the eyeb