Sneak Peek: Infant Squirrel Monkey Gets Bottle-Fed at Warsaw Zoo
May 01, 2013
An orphaned Common Squirrel Monkey is in very good hands at Warsaw Zoo. The infant was born at the zoo on March 28th and is now being bottle fed and raised by dedicated caretakers. The tiny monkey is male who weighed just 167 grams at birth. He is healthy and doing well.
Photo credits: Warsaw Zoo
Common Squirrel Monkeys are found abundantly throughout the rain-forests of South America. Very agile and playful, they are highly social animals that live in hierarchical groups. Males and females live in separate social groups. The females tend stay based around certain feeding and resting sites, while males travel more widely. During the mating season, the dominant male will mate with many or all the mature females that his group encounters.
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Females give birth to a single baby after a gestation period of 150-170 days. The females help each other to care for young. At four to ten weeks old, the young begin to explore their surroundings and engage in play that will help them to develop important skills, such as foraging for insects and fruits. Infants are born with prehensile tails, but lose this trait as they mature. The young monkeys become independant at about ten months of age.