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Tiny Monkey?

crouton1198

Gone But Not Forgotten
(ACCOUNT RETIRED)
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Apr 1, 2005
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I don't know if this really belongs here, but I'll share it with you anyway. I remember seeing in the local paper (The Seattle Times, or maybe The Post-Intelligencer in 1983 or 84) a photo of a monkey that had just been discovered in South America (I think). It was clinging to the head of a toothbrush. Unfortunately, I sent the photo to my then boyfriend (who didn't seem to appreciate it as much as I did), and I never saw or heard of it again. I would love to know if anyone else saw or knows anything about this. I am fairly sure that the toothbrush was a regular toothbrush, and not a giant size one. This monkey was supposed to be the smallest primate ever found, and if the toothbrush was a regular one, it would have to be TINY!
 
Tiny Monkey

That's not the photo I saw, but I'm sure it's the same type of monkey! Thanks, I was wondering if maybe the toothbrush had been a giant fake one, and the monkey regular size. Now, I'm sure it was a regular toothbrush, and a TINY MONKEY!!! Thanks again!
 
Finger Monkey

Finger Monkies!!!

They had those at the Crystal Gardens until it closed. I remember a brochure with a photo of a monkey hanging onto someone's finger. Coincidentally, my roomate's father was responsible for finding zoos/wildlife reserves to take the animals when they closed the Crystal Gardens down. We tried to convince him to give us a finger monkey, but to no avail. I miss them. :cry:
 
I'm pretty sure the monkey in that photo is an extremely young, possibly even newborn specimen - its eyes look like they haven't properly opened yet and the tail and feet/hands have that weird hairless "unformed" look that you see in premature or very malnourished human babies. I'd wager an adult of that species was quite a lot larger.

Having said that, the smallest monkeys are Pygmy Marmosets, found in parts of South America, of which the smallest species are IIRC only about rat-sized (although i'm not sure whether Marmosets are "true" monkeys or not - they may be another branch of primates, like things like lemurs) - so it's perfectly possible that monkeys that small, at some stage of their development, exist.

Could this be in any way related to the "Ink Monkey" thread?
 
I found this picture on Google (sorry that it is a rather rude gesture)

middle_finger_monkey.jpg
 
Awesome. That one looks like a mature version of the first picture. After searching myself (using 'smallest primate') I came up with this link:

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news ... gkong.html

So it looks like the pygmy marmoset may not be the smallest primate, if they are primates. The mouse lemur, found in Madagascar is the smallest.

What I can't understand, is how I could have seen a picture of one in a newspaper in 1984, when all the references I found about them indicate they have only recently been discovered???????

Insert Twilight Zone music here.

Unless, of course, they are two entirely different primate species.

Lydz, where was Crystal Gardens, and do you remember when the Finger Monkeys were there?
 
Finger Monkeys!!!

The Crystal Gardens is located in Victoria, BC, Canada. It was a zoo-type thing. They had a bat room and a butterfly room and a bunch of cages with monkeys in them. And some parrots that were chained to their perches. No wonder it got shut down. The finger monkeys were there until about 6 months ago. I know they had them for at least 5 years because I remember seeing the pamphlets with pictures of one hanging onto someone's finger.

And for the curious, lemurs are, in fact, a different genus than monkeys. Monkeys are primates, and lemurs are...umm, something else. Gotta go check my Anthropology notes... .
 
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