Reproduction
The female chooses a male from her group for mating. Both males and females use “anogenital sniffing” to check their mates for readiness for copulation. The gestation period ranges from 226 to 232 days. Each female bears only one offspring on average, every three to four years.
Until six to ten months of age, infants rely completely on their mothers. Males are not involved in raising the offspring.
A mother carries her infant around her belly for the first month after birth. After this, she carries it on her lower back. The infant wraps its tail around its mother’s and tightly grabs her midsection. Mothers are very protective of their young and are generally attentive mothers. They have been seen grabbing their young and putting them on their backs for protection and to help them navigate from tree to tree. They help the more independent young to cross by pulling branches closer together. Mothers also groom their young.
Read more about this topic: Spider Monkey
Famous quotes containing the word reproduction:
“As the twentieth century ends, commerce and culture are coming closer together. The distinction between life and art has been eroded by fifty years of enhanced communications, ever-improving reproduction technologies and increasing wealth.”
—Stephen Bayley (b. 1951)
“The atmosphere parents wish to create when talking with children about birth and reproduction is warm, honest, and reassuring, one that tells children they are free to ask questions as often as they need to, and you will answer them as lovingly as you know how.”
—Joanna Cole (20th century)
“Were I called on to define, very briefly, the term Art, I should call it “the reproduction of what the Senses perceive in Nature through the veil of the soul.” The mere imitation, however accurate, of what is in Nature, entitles no man to the sacred name of “Artist.””
—Edgar Allan Poe (1809–1845)