![]() ![]() And yet, people still want them in their homes. If you aren’t cool with that, then don’t get a monkey, advises. You can also expect frequent masturbation. Oh, and that thing you’ve seen on TV about monkeys throwing their feces? That’s a real thing. And because they’re social animals, it’s recommended you keep more than one or none at all. You have to entertain and stimulate them and then clean up the messes they make when you fail to sufficiently entertain and stimulate them. Of the many primates you could have for a pet, squirrel monkeys-of which there are at least five species-require an insane amount of care and attention. “I would never want one in my house,” says Anita Stone, a primatologist at Eastern Michigan University who has studied squirrel monkeys in Brazil for more than a decade. In some parts of South America, squirrel monkey pets are not out of the ordinary-even though, as my mother can attest, they do not make good housemates. During the 1960s and ’70s, large numbers of squirrel monkeys were imported into the United States from Peru and Colombia, and even today, it’s legal in many parts of this country to own one. The problem with the story of my grandfather’s squirrel monkey-OK, one of the many problems-is that it is not all that unique. “He hid in the corner of his cage and screamed whenever anyone came near him.Įventually, my grandmother put her foot down and gave the classic ultimatum: “Either the monkey goes, or I go.” The little primate was soon bartered off to some other eccentric for god knows what. “The poor little thing was cold, scared, and wanted nothing to do with us,” she told me recently. She had no idea where he got it (he was always bringing home bizarre attractions-one time a cotton candy machine, another time homing pigeons), but as she remembers it, the primate stayed with them for two miserable weeks. One winter when my mom was about eight years old, my grandfather brought home a squirrel monkey. On February 8, the Year of the Monkey will swing in, and in honor of the Chinese New Year, this weekly series will check in on the monkey business going down across the planet until the fireworks begin blasting over Beijing. ![]()
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