Central American White-faced Capuchin
Cebus imitator
- Class
- Mammal
- Rarity
- Rare
- Observations
- 7,678
- Most observed in
- 🇨🇷 Costa Rica
- Conservation
- Vulnerable
Description
The Panamanian white-faced capuchin (Cebus imitator), also known as the Panamanian white-headed capuchin or Central American white-faced capuchin, is a medium-sized New World monkey of the family Cebidae, subfamily Cebinae. Native to the forests of Central America, the white-faced capuchin is important to rainforest ecology for its role in dispersing seeds and pollen. The Panamanian white-faced capuchin is versatile, living in many different types of forest, and eating many different types of food, including fruit, other plant material, invertebrates, and small vertebrates. It lives in troops that can exceed 20 animals and include both males and females. It is noted for its tool use, including rubbing plants over its body in an apparent use of herbal medicine, and also using tools as weapons and for getting to food. It is a long-lived monkey, with a maximum recorded age of over 54 years. The white-faced capuchin is a medium-sized monkey, weighing up to 3.9 kg (8 lb 10 oz). It is mostly black, with a pink face and white on much of the front part of the body, giving it its common name. It has a distinctive prehensile tail that is often carried coiled up and is used to help support the monkey when it is feeding beneath a branch. Panamanian white-faced capuchins are highly social, living in groups of 16 individuals on average, about three quarters of which are females. Groups consists of related females, immigrant males, and offspring.
Summary adapted from the Wikipedia article “Panamanian white-faced capuchin”.