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The animal on the cover of Beginning NFC is a Central American squirrel monkey (Saimiri oerstedii). This small monkey has a distinctive black and white face mask, making it very identifiable in its native Panamanian and Costa Rican habitats. Squirrel monkeys are social animals that live in groups of 20 to 75 individuals; they have one of the most egalitarian social structures seen in the monkey kingdom. Females do not form dominance hierarchies, and males only become aggressive during breeding season.
It has been found that the males of a Central American squirrel monkey group are usually related, so they display marked affection toward one another. This behavior, coupled with the fact that neither sex takes dominance within the group, is unique to the Central American species of squirrel monkey. In contrast, bands of South American squirrel monkeys always have a strict social hierarchy, with one sex winning supremacy over the other and much fighting and competition between males.
Central American squirrel monkeys are omnivorous, and their diet includes insects, spiders, fruit, leaves, bark, flowers, and nectar. They also have a very unusual method for capturing tent-making bats; a monkey will locate a roosting bat by finding the tented leaves that provide it shelter, and then drop down onto the bat from above, hoping to startle it into emerging. Given the vegetarian aspect of its diet, the Central American squirrel monkey is a very important seed disperser and pollinator of certain flowers, including the passion flower. There are even several species of bird that have learned to follow the squirrel monkey around in hopes of catching extra insects and small vertebrates that the monkey flushes out of trees and undergrowth.
The current population of Central American squirrel monkeys is estimated at 36 monkeys per square mile in Costa Rica and 130 monkeys per square mile in Panama. It is believed that their current status as “vulnerable” is a direct result of deforestation, hunting, and capture for the pet trade. Habitat loss especially has fragmented the monkeys’ favored living areas and made it difficult for them to establish large breeding groups. Although the population is doing slightly better than it was forty years ago, there are still conservation and reforestation efforts underway to try to expand the current population within Panama, especially in the country’s national parks and wilderness reserves.
The cover image is from Riverside’s Natural History. The cover fonts are URW Typewriter and Guardian Sans. The text font is Adobe Minion Pro; the heading font is Adobe Myriad Condensed; and the code font is Dalton Maag’s Ubuntu Mono.