What is the function of a monkey's tail? What species are there?
The monkey is a very clever and lively animal; it is the common name for animals of the order Primates, the most highly developed group in the animal kingdom. Their brains are very well developed and their thumbs are nimble; when eating, they spit out shells just like humans. Monkeys are distributed all over the world, and in terms of evolutionary level they can be divided into three categories: high, medium and low. A monkey's tail is very flexible, thin and long, and is often called its fifth hand. So what is the function of a monkey's tail? What species are there?
1. What is the function of a monkey's tail?
1. Maintaining body balance
Monkeys sometimes climb and sometimes walk, and the tail plays a role in maintaining body balance.
2. Gripping function
When a monkey darts back and forth in the trees, you will see that it wraps its tail around branches, and sometimes it also uses it to obtain food. A monkey's tail is very strong; despite being thin and long, it can help it hang upside down to sleep.
3. Helping to dissipate heat
Some monkey species have bare tails, mainly to help dissipate heat when the weather is hot.
2. What species of monkeys are there?
Depending on the classification method, the species of monkeys differ.
If viewed by mode of locomotion, the tree-jumping type includes galagos, tarsiers, indris, weasel lemurs and others; the knuckle-walking type includes chimpanzees and gorillas; the quadrupedal type includes lorises, macaques and most other New World and Old World monkeys; the arm-swinging type is mainly gibbons and orangutans. If distinguished by type of foraging, the insect-eating ones include galagos, mouse lemurs, marmosets, crab-eating macaques, tarsiers and others, and most are nocturnal; the leaf-eating ones include langurs, colobus monkeys, howler monkeys, snub-nosed monkeys, gorillas and others, and most are diurnal; the omnivorous ones include the vast majority of primates, also mostly diurnal. Looking at mating types, the monogamous type includes indris, marmosets, capuchins, titis, night monkeys, tarsiers, long-tailed monkeys, some langurs, all gibbons and humans; the polygynous type includes long-tailed langurs, gorillas, patas monkeys, white-eyelid monkeys, weasel lemurs and others; the solitary type includes orangutans, pottos, galagos, aye-ayes, lorises, dwarf lemurs and others. One relatively common one is introduced below:
1. Golden snub-nosed monkey: there are 5 species of golden snub-nosed monkeys, the Myanmar golden snub-nosed monkey (Nujiang golden snub-nosed monkey), the Sichuan golden snub-nosed monkey, the Yunnan golden snub-nosed monkey, the Guizhou golden snub-nosed monkey and the Vietnamese golden snub-nosed monkey; apart from the Myanmar golden snub-nosed monkey and the Vietnamese golden snub-nosed monkey, all are rare animals endemic to China.
2. Macaque: macaques are mainly distributed in southern Asia, Indonesia, the Philippines and Japan. They like to live in grasslands, forests, swamps and so on, usually feeding on tender twigs, leaves and wild vegetables, and they can also prey on relatively small creatures.
3. Spider monkey: the spider monkey's tail is very flexible, with a function similar to that of a hand, and its gripping ability is very strong; it can walk upright. It is named this because its limbs and tail look like those of a spider. Spider monkeys are mainly distributed in the tropical rainforests of South America, and a group can generally number more than thirty.