I've had people ask me if Chiquito or Lolita would swallow small plastic objects or other non-edible things they find in the cage or on the ground, and the answer is no. The monkeys are smarter (at least in this regard) than young human children, who have an inclination to ingest pennies...and wedge peanuts up their nose.
The monkeys seem to have most of the same food preferences we do. They don't eat the banana skins, or the peanut shells, or the watermelon rinds. But they do swallow seeds whole, which is their primary ecological role. "Their propensity to swallow and pass seeds intact - and their wide daily ranging patterns - make spider monkeys especially effective seed dispersers for an enormous number of plant species in most Neotropical forests. Spider monkeys are also likely to be key dispersers for plants that produce large-seeded fruits, as they are the only arboreal frugivores capable of routinely swallowing and passing those seeds." [Spider Monkeys; Behavior, Ecology and Evolution of the Genus Ateles, edited by Christina J. Campbell, 2008]
It has been interesting to watch Lolita learn to eat solid food. Peeling a banana was not intuitive, nor did she know how to hold a piece of watermelon still on the rind and gnaw on the juicy part. We cut her cross-sections of banana that we haven't peeled yet so she'll see the fruit in the center. And we let her play with the watermelon rind, but also hand her melon balls.
Chiquito, who is older and more experienced, doesn't play with his food. But he definitely has his own techniques. He bites into the side of a banana to open the skin - no dainty peeling for him. And he eats the white part of the watermelon flesh as well as the red. The seeds? They pass...
The monkeys seem to have most of the same food preferences we do. They don't eat the banana skins, or the peanut shells, or the watermelon rinds. But they do swallow seeds whole, which is their primary ecological role. "Their propensity to swallow and pass seeds intact - and their wide daily ranging patterns - make spider monkeys especially effective seed dispersers for an enormous number of plant species in most Neotropical forests. Spider monkeys are also likely to be key dispersers for plants that produce large-seeded fruits, as they are the only arboreal frugivores capable of routinely swallowing and passing those seeds." [Spider Monkeys; Behavior, Ecology and Evolution of the Genus Ateles, edited by Christina J. Campbell, 2008]
It has been interesting to watch Lolita learn to eat solid food. Peeling a banana was not intuitive, nor did she know how to hold a piece of watermelon still on the rind and gnaw on the juicy part. We cut her cross-sections of banana that we haven't peeled yet so she'll see the fruit in the center. And we let her play with the watermelon rind, but also hand her melon balls.
Chiquito, who is older and more experienced, doesn't play with his food. But he definitely has his own techniques. He bites into the side of a banana to open the skin - no dainty peeling for him. And he eats the white part of the watermelon flesh as well as the red. The seeds? They pass...
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