228 SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS VOL. 69 



ALOUATTA PALLIATA INCONSONANS Goldman 



Panama Howling Monkey ; Mono Negro 



[Plate 39, figs. I, la] 



Alouatta palliata inconsonans Goldman, Smiths. Misc. Coll., Vol. 60, No. 22, 

 pp. 17-20, February 28, 1913. Type from Cerro Azul, near the head- 

 waters of the Chagres River, Panama (altitude 2,500 feet). 



The Panama howling monkey is recognizable as a large black 

 species with five fingers on the hands. It is closely allied to typical 

 A. p. palliata of Nicaragua and Costa Rica, but the general color is 

 clearer black, especially on the flanks, rump and posterior part of 

 back. The skull differs in numerous details, the braincase being 

 broader posteriorly, the frontal profile in the male rising more 

 abruptly from the rostrum, the supraorbital protuberance being 

 stouter, more projecting, the interpterygoid fossa broader, the audi- 

 tal bullae flatter and the premolars narrower. It differs from the 

 insular form, A. p. coibensis, in decidedly larger size. 



Howling monkeys are generally distributed throughout the repub- 

 lic and range from near the coasts well up toward the summits of 

 the higher mountains. The quaint account of monkeys in eastern 

 Panama by Lionel Wafer (1729, p. 330) based on observations made 

 in 1 68 1, refers to several species apparently including the howler. 

 It is quoted as follows : 



" There are great Droves of Monkeys, .... most of them black ; 

 some have Beards, others are beardless. They are of a middle size, 

 yet extraordinary fat at the dry Season, when the Fruits are ripe ; 

 and they are very good Meat, for we ate of them very plentifully. 

 The Indians were shy of eating them for a while ; but they soon were 

 persuaded to it, by seeing us feed on them so heartily. In the rainy 

 Season they have Worms in their Bowels. I have taken a handful 

 of them out of one Monkey we cut open ; and some of them 7 or 8 

 Foot long. They are a very waggish Kind of Monkey, and played 

 a thousand antick Tricks as we marched at any Time through the 

 Woods, skipping from Bough to Bough, with the young one's 

 hanging at the old one's Back, making Faces at us, [and] chatter- 

 ing To pass from Top to Top of high Trees, whose Branches 



are a little too far asunder for their Leaping, they will sometimes 

 hang down by one another's Tails in a Chain ; and swinging in that 

 Manner, the lowermost catches hold of a Bough of the other Trees, 

 and draws up the rest of them." 



The habit of passing from tree to tree hanging by their tails in a 

 chain is, of course, fictitious. 



