DIETA DEL MONO ARAÑA MARRÓN ATELES HYBRIDUS EN UN FRAGMENTO DE BOSQUE EN LA RESERVA FORESTAL DE CAPARO, VENEZUELA EN TEMPORADA SECA

Abstract

The brown spider monkey (Ateles hybridus) lives in Colombia and Venezuela and is a Critically Endangered species. The objective was to characterize the behavioral pattern of A. hybridus in a forest fragment in dry season in the Forest Reserve Caparo, Venezuela. Records collected every five min were obtained to evaluate the Focal-Animal Sampling. 21 individuals were identified in the group. To monitor A. hybridus, they have identified six types of activities that the species makes during the day and the following percentages were obtained: rest (42.88%), displacement (33.02%), food (16.05%), vocalization (3.66%), social interaction (3.6%) and others (0.8%). A higher percentage of the activity of rest in males, and higher percentages of displacement activities and food were obtained in females. It was noted that there is little significant variation in patterns of activity between females and males. It was observed that the activity was increasing through the months except for feeding and movement, which increased and then decreased. It was observed that monkeys use more than two zones of the study area to feed and move and that this is due to the high similarity of vegetation between these. This study contributes to better understanding about how fragmentation affects the behavior of this species.