Spider monkeys actively choose to eat fruit infested with insects

Spider monkeys actively select to eat fruit infested with bugs

Some spider monkeys residing within the Amazon rainforest largely reside on fruit, however select to eat ones containing larval bugs as a means of boosting their protein consumption

Black spider monkey (Ateles chamek)

Amazon-Photos/Alamy

Some species of spider monkey residing within the Amazon rainforest actively select to eat fruit infested with larval bugs, as a means of introducing extra protein into their eating regimen.

“Spider monkeys eat largely fruit pulp,” says Thiago Cavalcante of Brazil’s Nationwide Amazon Analysis Institute. “That is typically fairly poor in protein.”

To learn how white-cheeked (Ateles marginatus) and black-faced (Ateles chamek) spider monkeys guarantee a wholesome mixture of vitamins, Cavalcante and his colleagues watched them consuming in forest alongside the Amazon’s Tapajós river and …