These roaring and howling calls are performed mostly by the males in the group. These howlers are famous for their “dawn chorus”. Venezuelan red howlers are most active in the morning, when the group is on the move to find another feeding spot. The females of the group are in charge of the offspring. One male is the usually dominant monkey of the group, the alpha male, and he is responsible for leading them to new food sites and defending them. The groups are polygynous, with only one or two males and the rest females and their offspring. It lives in groups of three to 9 individuals (usually five to seven). This can be seen by the wide separation of the second and third digits of the hand. In addition, its hands and feet have a grasping pattern that allows it to better move about in the trees. Its long, prehensile tail also assists it by providing both support and grasping abilities. Its preferred method of locomotion is quadrupedal walking with minimal leaping. The diurnal Alouatta seniculus is an arboreal primate, so it spends much of its time high in the canopy. This makes them an exception among other New World monkeys. Howler monkeys also have an inflated bulla, which is the bony encasement of the middle ear. The position of the foramen magnum is very posterior to make way for the expanded jaw and enlarged hyoid bone. The jawbone of the red howler monkey is large, especially the body of the mandible. Their faces are surrounded by fur and they have stubby noses. The color of both males and females is a deep reddish-brown, and the color shade changes with age. The tail is covered with fur except for the last third of the underside, which allows it to grab branches. It has a long prehensile tail of 49–75 cm. The males weigh 5.4-9 kg, while females weigh 4.2–7 kg. Sexual dimorphism in this species is small males range from 49 to 72 cm and females from 46 to 57 cm long. All howler monkeys belong to the family Atelidae and the infraorder Platyrrhini (New World monkeys).ĭescription Skull of Alouatta seniculus. The population in the Santa Cruz Department in Bolivia was split off as a separate species, the Bolivian red howler, in 1986, and more recently, splitting off the population in northeastern South America and Trinidad as the Guyanan red howler has occurred. The Colombian red howler or Venezuelan red howler ( Alouatta seniculus) is a South American species of howler monkey, a type of New World monkey, found in the western Amazon Basin in Venezuela, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru and Brazil.
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