Colours of Wildlife: Putty-Nosed Monkey
Created | Updated Aug 27, 2017
Putty-Nosed Monkey
Willem is a wildlife artist based in South Africa. He says "My aim is simply to express the beauty and wonder that is in Nature, and to heighten people's appreciation of plants, animals and the wilderness. Not everything I paint is African! Though I've never been there, I'm also fascinated by Asia and I've done paintings of Asian rhinos and birds as well. I may in future do some of European, Australian and American species too. I'm fascinated by wild things from all over the world! I mainly paint in watercolours. . . but actually many media including 'digital' paintings with the computer!"
I hope y'all are not yet tired of the monkeys … I'm not! And you only have to read … I have to paint them and write them up! This time it's a Putty-Nosed Monkey, or Greater Spot-nosed Monkey, Cercopithecus nictitans. The form I illustrate here, is the Central African Putty-Nosed Monkey, the main form; the other form occurs to the west and is called Martin's Putty-Nosed Monkey, Cercopithecus nictitans martinii. That one is lighter in colour, with a whitish underside, and narrower, more upright-arranged fur on its head. The Central-African putty-nosed monkey is mostly dark grey in colour, with blackish limbs and tail. In both subspecies, the white nose stands out boldly from the dark face. These are medium-sized monkeys, males reaching 8 kg/17.5 lbs, females reaching 5 kg/11 lbs. Like other forest monkeys they have long tails. Note that African monkeys never have prehensile tails like many South American monkeys do; they use their tails mainly for balance while running and jumping around the canopy.
Putty-nosed monkeys belong to a large group of African monkeys called gentle monkeys; these used to be considered two or three species: C. nictitans, C. mitis and sometimes C. albogularis, but there are many scientists who feel that the C. mitis-group should be broken up into several more species. As it is, this group occurs widely from tropical Western to Central to Eastern Africa, with one species reaching South Africa. They're all quite similar in basic form – medium to large, dark, rather shaggy-furred, living in small bands and communicating with loud barks. They live in forests, from open and fairly dry, to moist rainforest, in the lowlands as well as on mountains. Many mountain regions contain isolated, distinctive populations, which constitute much of the genetic diversity of the group. These monkeys are mainly vegetarians, eating fruit from many kinds of forest trees. In cases of fruit shortages, they will eat leaves, and also insects and other invertebrates, which they hunt by methodically inspecting the tree bark and patches of mosses and lichens.
This dietary adaptability has made the gentle-monkey group very successful in Africa in the drier, more species-poor or unstable forest areas. They are replaced in richer forest areas by more specialized monkeys. But gentle monkeys are very agile, fast and well-coordinated up in the canopy. They tend to disperse along the banks of rivers, using these as corridors to enter otherwise unsuitable territory.
The putty-nosed monkey, especially, is mainly constrained by the presence of other, more specialized monkeys, its main range being to the north of the Congo or Zaire River (with Martin's putty-nosed monkey to the west of this range). The male, because of his larger size, is less able to clamber about thin branches than the smaller female, which in practice means that he gets to eat less fruits than she. Instead, he eats more leaves. Both sexes eat about the same amount of invertebrates, mainly caterpillars, ants and spiders. The monkeys live in bands numbering 12-30; there is typically one dominant male, who tends his females and has his hands full with keeping the sub-dominant males away from them. The leading male is very raucous, communicating to the troop with loud booms, barks and hacking alarm calls. In general, the monkeys greet each other by waving their heads up and down, to display those brilliant white nose spots of theirs. They also pout their lips at each other!
Babies can be born any time of the year; mostly these are born singly, after about 225 days of gestation. The young monkeys are very playful, sometimes naughty, their parents often having to discipline them with a slap or a pinch!
The putty-nosed monkey is at present one of the safer African monkeys, though as all non-human primates, they're much hunted for food by humans. It still occurs over a large range, although Martin's putty-nosed monkey has a fragmented range and is considered rare.
