Greater Spot-nosed Monkey

Taxobox
name = Greater Spot-nosed MonkeyMSW3 Groves | pages = 157]
status = LC
status_system = iucn3.1
status_ref = IUCN2006 | assessors = Butynski, T. & Members of the Primate Specialist Group | year = 2000 | title = Cercopithecus nictitans | id = 4224 | downloaded = 2007-01-25]
regnum = Animalia
phylum = Chordata
classis = Mammalia
ordo = Primates
familia = Cercopithecidae
genus = "Cercopithecus"
species = "C. nictitans"
binomial = "Cercopithecus nictitans"
binomial_authority = (Linnaeus, 1766)

The Greater Spot-nosed Monkey or Putty-nosed monkey ("Cercopithecus nictitans") is one of the smallest Old World monkeys. It is a guenon of the "C. mitis" group, native to West Africa and living to some extent in rain forests but more often in the transition zone between rain forest and savannah. They are primarily arboreal and often associate with monkeys of other species (Eckhardt & Zuberbühler, 2004). Both their common names come from the monkeys' prominent white nose.

Putty-nosed monkeys live in groups consisting of one adult male, a number of adult females, and their dependent offspring (Arnold & Zubermühler, 2006). There has been little recent research into their behaviour, and most of it has concentrated on their auditory communication. Males use three call types which have been described as 'booms', 'pyows' and 'hacks'. These are used in a number of contexts including as alarm calls.

As in some other species of monkeys, it has been argued that the acoustical structure of putty-nosed monkey alarm calls varies according to the kind of predator that has been spotted (Arnold & Zubermühler, 2006). It has also been suggested that the monkeys combine different sounds into a sequence, which has an entirely different meaning from the sounds out of which it is made (Arnold and Zubermühler, 2008). For instance, the sound "pyow" alone means that other animals, like a Leopard, are lurking nearby, and "hack" means that a flying animal, like an eagle, is flying near by. But when the two are combined together, like in the sequence "pyow pyow hack hack hack hack" they have an entirely different meaning: let's get out of here and move to another place.

References

*Arnold, K., & Zuberbühler, K. (2006). The alarm-calling system of adult male putty-nosed monkeys, "Cercopithecus nictitans martini". "Animal Behaviour, 72", 643-653. doi|10.1016/j.anbehav.2005.11.017
*Arnold, K., & Zuberbühler, K. (2008). Meaningful call combinations in a non-human primate. "Current Biology, 18", R202-R203. doi|10.1016/j.cub.2008.01.040
*Eckardt, W., and Zuberbühler, K. (2004). Cooperation and competition in two forest monkeys. "Behavioural Ecology, 15", 400-411. doi|10.1093/beheco/arh032

External links

* [http://www.bucknell.edu/msw3/browse.asp?id=12100484 Mammal species of the World: Cercopithecus nictitans]