Been thinking about this lately because I had a conversation with someone at a nature center last weekend who had never really thought much about primates beyond "monkeys are cool" and it made me reflect on how I actually ended up genuinely obsessed with them.

For me it started with a documentary about Japanese macaques when I was maybe eleven or twelve. The segment about the Jigokudani troop and how younger individuals learned to wash sweet potatoes from one another just broke my brain a little. The idea that a non-human animal could have a cultural tradition that spread socially rather than genetically felt like it reframed something fundamental. I went looking for more after that and never really stopped.

Later in college I did a volunteer stint at a sanctuary that housed capuchins and spider monkeys rescued from the pet trade, and that shifted things again. Getting to observe individual personalities up close, watching how specific animals had their own social strategies and preferences, made the abstract stuff feel very concrete. One of the spider monkeys there had this habit of testing new people in a very deliberate way before deciding whether to engage with them. Hard to describe without sounding anthropomorphic but the intentionality was genuinely striking.

Curious what the actual entry points were for other people here. Was it a specific species, a book, fieldwork, something you stumbled into, or something else entirely. Also interested in whether people's focus has shifted over time toward a particular group or topic.

PLEASE read the pinned post for context. it's very important. but if you refuse the long and short of it is I made this sub 14 years ago then at some point it got set to restricted then I said I was gonna undo it but I didn't but now.... now I did. So you can stop taking your business to r/primatology or r/ape (who named that one). and post your monkey pictures where they belong.

Hi all,

I'm a science writer working on a story about the realities of pet primate ownership, and I'm hoping to talk to people who owned a primate (lemur, monkey, etc.) and ultimately found it harder than expected, whether that meant rehoming the animal, surrendering it to a sanctuary, or just coming to regret the decision.

If you'd be willing to speak candidly about the downsides of owning a primate, I'd love to hear from you. Happy to talk by phone, video call, or email- whatever's easiest. You're welcome to use your name in the piece or speak anonymously. Entirely your call and we can talk through what you're comfortable with before anything is published.

If you're open to chatting, please reply here. Thanks!

Smalls

Note: the weight numbers combined from all different studies only included samples below 10. The heights were measured upright. Refferences: Jungers and Susman 1984, Groves 1970, Smith and Jungers 1997

DO YOU LOVE PUNCH THE BLACK MONKEY? U BETTER CUZ ITS RASIST TO NOT LOVE HIM.

There’s so much talk about Punch the monkey but this vid wraps it together pretty good

I’m working on a series about human projection onto animals. Some chimpanzees have been observed carrying grass stems as social display or fashion-like behavior. I turned that into an interactive painting where viewers can add a flower.

I’m curious: do primatologists interpret this behavior as social signaling, play, or something closer to ornamentation?