Sakis
| Sakis | ||||||||||||
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Bald-faced saki ( Pithecia irrorata ) |
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| Systematics | ||||||||||||
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| Scientific name | ||||||||||||
| Pithecia | ||||||||||||
| Desmarest , 1804 |
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The Sakis ( Pithecia ) are a primate genus from the family of the Sakia monkey (Pitheciidae). Together with the bartsakis , they are also known as tail monkeys . The genus is divided into 13 to 16 species.
description
Sakis are smaller monkeys with long, bushy tails. Their shaggy, rough fur is colored black, gray or reddish-brown, depending on the species. The faces of some species are naked, but the hair on the top of the head resembles a hood. The limbs are adapted to the life of the tree, strong hind legs enable them to make long jumps. Sakis reach a body length of 30 to 55 centimeters, the tail is just as long, and a weight of 1.5 to 3 kilograms.
distribution and habitat
Sakis live in northern and central South America , their range includes the Amazon basin and Guyana and extends in the west from southern Colombia over the eastern lowlands of Ecuador and Peru to northern Bolivia . Their habitat are mainly rainforests.
Way of life
Sakis are diurnal animals. They live in the trees and rarely come to the ground. Most of the time they move on all fours or jump larger distances. To sleep they curl up like cats in the branches. They are generally very shy, cautious animals.
Sakis live in family groups consisting of their parents and their offspring, with couples mostly staying together for life. They are territorial animals that defend their territory from other families. Sakis are familiar with a number of ways of communicating: while high-pitched screams or bird-like chirping are more likely to encourage contact between family members, loud roars are intended to drive other animals away from their own territory.
food
Sakis feed mostly on seeds and hard-shelled fruits, for which they are well adapted with their robust teeth. To a small extent, they ingest other parts of plants such as flowers and leaves, as well as insects and small vertebrates (such as rodents or bats).
Reproduction
Mating can take place all year round. After around 160 to 180 days of gestation, the female gives birth to a young. Unlike other monogamous South American primates, the mother mainly takes care of the young. It is weaned after several months and is sexually mature after around three years. Their life expectancy in human care is over 35 years.
Danger
Like many inhabitants of the rainforests of South America, Sakis suffer from their deforestation and the associated destruction of their habitat. In addition, they are sometimes hunted for their fur or meat. However, Sakis are relatively widespread and less endangered than other primate species, with the IUCN only listing one of the five species as endangered.
Systematics
The Sakis form together with the jumper monkeys , the Bartsakis and the Uakaris the family of the Sakia monkeys (Pitheciidae). In 1987 the mammalogue Philip Hershkovitz distinguished five types of saki: the white-headed saki with two subspecies ( P. pithecia pithecia and P. pithecia chrysocephala ), the monk monkeys, also with two subspecies ( P. monachus monachus and P. monachus milleri ), also the bald faced saki two subspecies ( P. irrorata irrorata and P. irrorata vanzolinii ), as well as the equatorial saki ( P. aequatorialis ) and the blond monk monkey ( P. albicans ).
The rainforest expert and primatologist Laura K. Marsh published a revision of the Sakis in 2014 , in which she differentiated 16 species, some of them very similar, the five previously registered, three revalidated forms that were formerly regarded as descriptions of synonyms , and three that were raised from the rank of subspecies to species rank were and five newly described species. The revision was based on examinations of 876 skins and 690 skulls kept in 36 museums in 17 countries in North America, South America, Europe and Japan, as well as hundreds of photos of wild and captive sakis. Genetic analyzes were not carried out. In her work, the author assumed that the great Amazonian rivers, according to the river barrier hypothesis, cannot be crossed by the monkeys and thus act as barriers for allopatric speciation , similar to what has already been established in other groups of monkeys and confirmed by genetic analyzes has been.
In 2019, a group of scientists from the American Society of Mammalogists also looked at the material after finding that traits and ranges for the newly proposed species had not been well defined. They dealt with the irrorata group of species and could prove instead of five species only two clear morphologically and geographically separable types: Pithecia irrorata (syn. Mittermeieri , rylandsi and pissinattii ) and Pithecia vanzolinii .
species
- pithecia group
- Bald Saki ( P. pithecia )
- Golden faced kaki ( P. chrysocephala )
- monachus group
- Equatorial Saki ( P. aequatorialis )
- Blond monk monkey or black-backed monk monkey ( P. albicans )
- Pithecia cazuzai
- Pithecia hirsuta
- Pithecia inusta
- Pithecia isabela
- Monk monkey ( P. monachus )
- Miller's monk monkey ( P. milleri )
- Pithecia napensis
- irrorata group
- Bald-faced saki ( P. irrorata )
- Mittermeier-Nacktgesichtsaki ( P. mittermeieri ), disputed species
- Pithecia pissinattii , controversial species
- Pithecia rylandsi , controversial kind
- Vanzolini's Bald-Faced Saki ( Pithecia vanzolinii )
In the Brazilian state of Rondônia , near the Jirau dam, there is another sakiform that has so far only been little researched scientifically. This could be another species or a hybrid. In English, the shape is called Jamarisaki. The Bartsakis (including the White Nose Saki and the Satan Monkey ) do not belong zoologically to the Sakis genus, but form their own genus ( Chiropotes ).
literature
- Thomas Geissmann : Comparative Primatology. Springer-Verlag, Berlin et al. 2003, ISBN 3-540-43645-6 .
- Ronald M. Nowak: Walker's Mammals of the World. 6th edition. Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore MD 1999, ISBN 0-8018-5789-9 .
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b c Laura K. Marsh. 2014. A Taxonomic Revision of the Saki Monkeys, Pithecia Desmarest, 1804. Neotropical Primates. 21 (1); 1-163.
- ↑ José Eduardo Serrano-Villavicencio, Cindy M Hurtado, Rafaela L Vendramel, Fabio Oliveira do Nascimento. 2019. Reconsidering the taxonomy of the Pithecia irrorata species group (Primates: Pitheciidae) . Journal of Mammalogy. 100 (1): 130-141. doi: 10.1093 / jmammal / gyy167 .
- ^ Marsh. 2014, pages 152–154.