Monkeyin' Around on the Devil's Island

Sidedoor

Smithsonian Institution

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4.6 • 2.3K Ratings

🗓️ 27 March 2024

⏱️ 29 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

It started as a rumor in the cafeteria of the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute in Panama: monkeys on an island in the Pacific were doing something no one had ever seen them do before. But when researchers went searching for these elusive capuchin monkeys, they discovered more questions than answers.

Guests:

Claudio Monteza, Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute fellow and researcher at the Max Planck Institute of Animal Behavior

Brendan Barrett, researcher at the University of Konstanz and the Max Planck Institute of Animal Behavior

Meg Crofoot, director of the Department for the Ecology of Animal Societies at the Max Planck Institute of Animal Behavior. Former Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute fellow

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hey there's side doorables, we are super excited about today's episode.
0:03.7	It's the first of three stories we reported from the Smithsonian's Tropical Research Institute in Panama.
0:10.1	I had a blast traipsing around the jungle recording it.
0:13.0	I hope you enjoy. This is Side Door, a podcast from the Smithsonian with support from PRX.
0:28.0	I'm Lizzy Peabody. Meg Crowfoot has spent her life studying primates, you know monkeys, apes, but she's especially focused on
0:46.1	capuchin monkeys. I mean capuchin's are, well I think of them as devil spawn.
0:51.2	What? Devil Spawn?
0:54.5	Yeah, so I did my PhD on these species.
0:56.5	They ran me up and down hills for two years of my life.
0:59.6	And while I think that they are deeply interesting, they're also, am I allowed to say this on the radio?
1:05.0	Yes.
1:06.0	They're little shiks.
1:07.0	Even if you've never met a capuchin yourself, you'd probably recognize one.
1:15.0	In the show Friends, Ross had a pet capuchin named Marcel.
1:19.0	They're small and black with white faces, cute, if you didn't know otherwise.
1:24.7	They love to tear things apart.
1:26.7	They harass every animal they find in the forest.
1:29.2	I mean, when capuchin's find a sloth, like it up and like pulling its hair, you know,
1:35.3	they're like poorly behaved children who are into everything and constantly doing things.
1:39.5	You might say all this mischief just comes with the territory of having a really big brain, which is what
1:45.0	makes Kaputians fascinating monkeys to study.
1:48.3	They are really smart.
	...

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