They’re Only Monkeys if They Have Tails - by Quillian

There are many different types of primates.  In fact, there are so many I could write about them for months. In this post, I’m only going to cover a few, the ones we saw in Borneo.  Apes and monkeys are both types of primates. The main difference between apes and monkeys is that monkeys have tails and apes don’t. 

The first primate I am going to cover is a monkey called the long tailed macaque. The long tailed macaque eats mainly fruit but it can also eat insects, leaves, and crabs. Speaking of crabs, the long tailed macaque is also known as the crab eating macaque. They live in the trees of the rainforest for all of their life. They sleep in the branches of the trees but they don’t make nests or beds. 

Adorable-ness

(in the form of a long tailed macaque)

Next, I’m going to talk about another monkey called the proboscis monkey.  They survive on leaves, seeds, and unripe fruit, but will occasionally eat insects. Proboscis monkeys only eat unripe fruit because ripe fruit contains sugar that will ferment in their stomachs, leading to fatal tummy aches. Like long tailed macaques, proboscis monkeys sleep in large trees.  Unlike long tailed macaques, they have a strong preference for sleeping by the river. When we were on the boat in Borneo we saw them in the evenings by the river. 

Boing! (Proboscis monkey)

Last but not least, we have oranagutans, one of the great apes. The word oranagutan means "people of the forest" in Indonesian. They mainly eat fruits but they also feed on young leaves, flowers, insects, and even small mammals.  When food gets scarce they sometimes eat the food around them like soil and tree bark (yuck!).  Orangutans like to be comfortable so they make a nest every night which takes around ten minutes. They pull several large branches together using smaller branches and bind them together by weaving bendable branches. Like more than half of primates, they are endangered by habitat loss.

Fireman's pole orangutan style