Why Only Some Monkeys Have Awesome Tails
Almost all mammals with prehensile tails live in the neotropics because the forest is different there. Thanks to http://www.audible.com/minuteearth for sponsoring this video. Thanks also...
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Hi, this is Kate from MinuteEarth. Many of the monkeys scampering around the forests of Central and South America have something special on their butts: an extra hand. Well, not exactly; it’s a prehensile tail, a grasping appendage that helps the animals navigate the tall and treacherous canopy in search of fruits and leaves. In fact, these tails are so handy that monkeys in the Americas have evolved them two separate times, and they’ve evolved dozens of times in other mammals, reptiles, amphibians, and fish. But there’s a big group of monkeys in which these handy appendages don’t exist. In Africa and Asia, monkeys’ tails are just...tails. Which is weird, because those monkeys also spend all day monkeying around in the canopy and could presumably us...
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Hi, this is Kate from MinuteEarth. Many of the monkeys scampering around the forests of Central and South America have something special on their butts: an extra hand. Well, not exactly; it’s a prehensile tail, a grasping appendage that helps the animals navigate the tall and treacherous canopy in search of fruits and leaves. In fact, these tails are so handy that monkeys in the Americas have evolved them two separate times, and they’ve evolved dozens of times in other mammals, reptiles, amphibians, and fish. But there’s a big group of monkeys in which these handy appendages don’t exist. In Africa and Asia, monkeys’ tails are just...tails. Which is weird, because those monkeys also spend all day monkeying around in the canopy and could presumably us...
