5 Amazing Fun Facts About Vervet Monkeys You Won't Believe!

1. Rum-Loving Sugar Thieves

Blame it on the rum: These vervet monkeys are quite the party animals, developing a powerful sweet tooth on their tropical island home. The sugar-loving simians inherited their craving back in the day from rum-making slaves who brought them to St. Kitts from West Africa over 300 years ago. Today, they can be found swiping sugarcane from farmers' fields, indulging in their delightful stolen treats.
Source => laughingsquid.com

2. Color-Changing Scrotums

Feeling blue takes on a whole new hue for vervet monkeys and their dazzling family jewels: These clever primates sport scrotums that can change from blue to white due to dermal hydration, thanks to their melanized melanosomes and a scientific phenomenon called Tyndall scattering – but fear not, ladies, this has nothing to do with their dominance or mating habits.
Source => pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

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3. Ape-Reality Show Drama

Vervet monkey business is no "ape-rentice" reality show, with drama, alliances, and glitz in their social circles: These charismatic primates display complex dominance relationships through priorities in space, food, grooming, and aggression, as well as forming strategic coalitions during intense encounters, making them the true celebrities of the animal world.
Source => jstor.org

4. High School Cliques in the Jungle

Move over, high school cliques: vervet monkeys have their own social circles too! Just like humans, these furry chatterboxes prefer to bond with individuals who share their age, rank, and gender; with females forming tight-knit squads and males wandering from group to group in search of friendships.
Source => frontiersin.org

5. Tree-Munching Buffet Lovers

When vervet monkeys aren't too busy auditioning for a spot as Tarzan's sidekick, they're munching away at trees like they're at an all-you-can-eat buffet: These eclectic omnivores primarily consume plant material like leaves, stems, and flowers, along with woody shrubs and trees such as Acacia, needle bush, and southern llala palm. They even indulge in an extra sticky tree gum treat from fever trees, year-round in eastern Africa.
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