Capuchin Chronicles

In a private reserve on the coast line of the Nicoya Peninsula, Tyler Christensen and I’s, organization NPARS, has a banding station at Silvestre Curu.

In a sea of Mango Trees that have long since forgotten how to produce fruit, sits one of our banding sites.  In the down time between net runs, I’ve spent countless hours observing and photographing White-faced Capuchins (Cebus capucinus), now I’m by no mean a primatologist, but have seen too many interesting things not to start talking about them. 

So Between the banding site and our base camp at the Finca, as we call it, I’m going to go through some interesting things I’ve seen, some moments of clarity that, yes those teeth could really hurt if I was bit, and just the fact their so deviously smart.

I had seen Capuchins before in Panama, but it wasn’t till five years ago when I first started doing research in Costa Rica that I started to become intimately familiar with them. At the Finca we have a troop that makes passes through the property almost once daily, so I’ve become familiar with the group and the premise of their dynamics.  I’ve actually named most of them, it’s easier that way to remember behaviors I’ve seen or just things in general. It sounds a little hokey, but it’s better than just numbering them. I started to become familiar with their intelligence around the same time.  Have we had Capuchins break into the house and stolen bananas on a regular basis, yes they have, have they thwarted all of our ideas to prevent them from stealing the fruit from the bird feeders, that a big ten four. It was no surprise to me when I read that, White-faced Capuchins have the highest brain-to-body-size ratio of any primate other than people. 

 

 

In our first year banding at Silvestre Curu, some of my more infamous stories about Capuchins occurred. There is more than one troop there and sometimes the interactions between troops can lead to a human getting mixed up in it. There used to be this one older Capuchin that had some type of injury, it led to him having a slack jaw.  Now he wasn’t a loner, but would be found astray from the group quite often. One day I saw him sitting on a stump adjacent to the Mango trees, so I walked over to him for some photos. Now the Capuchins there are very good scavengers and steel food or are given food from tourists all the time. There actually one of the most important factors in seed and pollen distribution in rainforest ecology.  I didn’t notice or wasn’t aware of the other Capuchin in the vicinity, but lurking in the shadows there apparently was one. I’m taking photos of my slack jawed docile friend, when all of a sudden, I hear noise and just a flash of black and white fury. Another Capuchin must have thought I was going to feed him or something; he was none to pleased and made me aware of it. He busted through the canopy and was on the adjacent log before I even knew what was going to happen. 

I really had no other options than lift my camera to take some photos and possibly brace for Capuchin teeth. I took the first photo and while looking through my viewfinder watched him come in closer. The second photo he was only about two or three feet away from the front end of the lens.

All I heard was a Capuchin hissing, Tyler yelling you’re going to get attacked, and the auditory thought I wonder what kind of infection can I get from a Capuchin bite. Luckily we had a nice little standoff and both slowly backed away, neither of us to ashamed that we were walking away on amicable terms.  Now should I have learned my lesson and kept a safer distance from Capuchins, most likely, was that going to happen, not at all.  In those first years a lot of the times in between sessions I would climb up into a Mango tree and sit there between net checks. Sometimes the monkeys would be in adjacent trees or near by, so I could watch them interact with each other as a casual observer.   

One time while in a tree I had my back to a capuchin troop, which were in an adjacent patch of habitat next to me. Slowly the troop started to move into the area I was in, a few at a time I watched as the Capuchins filled the trees around me. Eventually I heard the very recognizable sound of Capuchins swinging into my tree like trapeze artists. I had my back up against the trunk of the tree that was rather large, so I was obscured from their viewing point. All of a sudden on two adjacent branches to me, Capuchins landed and like Olympics style gymnastics dismantled with a buoyant grace. All of a sudden there was a cloud of alarm calls, yelling, branches breaking, black and white streaks all over the trees, and than a Wild West showdown of two monkeys and I in this tree. Two of the larger males in the troop had taken to defending the troop from this apparently foreign larger monkey in their midst. There most common way to get the message across their not happy with a situation is teeth barring, followed by rigorous branch shaking, let me tell you they back a lot of furisoity in that small package. I was again forced with a perplexing decision of what to do next, I really didn’t have much room to work with, so I decided to slide out of the tree, rather than be forcibly dismantled from it with two Capuchins attached to me. That first year we just seemed to be in a constant battle with these meddling monkeys. There were incidents of them trying to steal bags, throwing sticks at us, and just general ruckus in and around the banding station. It came to a unexpected peak of, well this has just gotten ridiculous, when after coming back from a net check there was a Capuchin on top of the banding table rummaging through our belongings. 

Over the years I’ve had great fun at Curu observing their dynamically large troops of Capuchins, I always look forward to observing new things there. Just this year I observed am interesting behavioral technique they were using to obtain water with. In the Mango Trees there are large knots in the trucks that will collect water, now in the past I've observed the monkeys drink the water from them, but never like this. This year I watched in amazement as a few Capuchins would come up to the knots and dip their tails into the holes, they would than proceed to drink from their soaked fur. It was amazing they had figured out they could get more water out of the holes by dipping there long an thin tails to maximize the absorption factor of their fur. 

The Boa and the Monkeys, if you say that around the Finca, we all know the story. Capuchins are no friend to Snakes and vise a versa. They have been observed using tools and other mean to kill snakes or at least keep them at bay. A full-grown Boa Constrictor can make short work of one of these monkeys. One day Tyler had found a Boa on the road and brought it back for some photos. At the time Twan Leenders was visiting, so we took it out of the bag to inspect it. I don’t think there were any Capuchins in the direct vicinity at first, but there soon would be. It was raining Capuchins, the building and small trees in the garden were dripping with loud and vocally offended Capuchins. 

They were trying to signal to other to stay away, while also letting the Boa know it was not welcome in the area. After we showed the Capuchins the Boa for a bit and watched their reactions to protect one another, we took the boa away. It was amazing how organized they could be with a common threat amongst them.

 

Sometimes I feel like a crazy cat lady, I have all these names for the Capuchins and I’ll find myself making comments out loud about them. I’m lucky I’m in the middle of the rainforest and most of the time no one can hear me. I do hope to one day do some formal primatology behavioral research, or at least work with some other that are more informed in this field than I am. I'm sure the years to come will be filled with more interesting tales and just plain debauchery with this mischievously intelligent species.