 The loudest land animal in the world is the howler monkey. The call of a howler monkey can be heard up to four and a half kilometers away. The howler monkey lives well over 15 years. They are around 2 to 4 feet in length, excluding the tail and have a weight of 8 to 20 pounds. There are roughly 9 species of this monkey. They are from the ‘atelidae’ animal family. They are locally found in the forests of South and Central America. They usually live in groups consisting of 15 to 20 monkeys. Howler monkeys are often hunted for their flesh and some are kept captive. The verbal form of contact is a significant part of their group behavior.
The name is derived from their characteristic barking or whooping sound that they make, and it is so loud that it can be heard over long distances. The male monkey’s voice seems like a giant roar where as the female monkey’s sound isn’t as effective. They have inflated ‘hyoid bone’ which assists them to make distinctly loud sounds. They are huge and rather sluggish in their movements. Howler monkeys are mostly vegetarians by nature; their food mainly consists of fruits, nuts, flowers and some  types of leaves. They occasionally have maggots for variety. When these monkeys fight for food, during mating season or for territorial lands, they do not necessarily engage in a physical quarrel but start yelping and slapping each other. The tails of howler monkeys are so strong that it can sustain the weight of their whole body. These tree living creatures are very lazy and 80 % of their time is spent in resting, they are the less energetic than the other members of the monkey family. In any group, the female population is greater than the male population. They are friendly beings and form large groups. These primitive beings are also termed as ‘new world monkeys’. Due to loss of forests and natural habitats, these species are slowly diminishing from the world in an alarming rate. The color of an adult male monkey is usually brown or shades of black, female monkeys are lighter skinned. Their tails are 2 feet long and very strong.
 During mating seasons adult female monkeys become pregnant and deliver only one baby at a time. Some types of predator eagles and other large birds prey on howler monkeys. These monkeys do not make good pets; though they are rarely aggressive, they do not like to be held as a prisoner. But the ‘black howler’ monkeys in Argentina are gentle creatures and are taken as pets. They are habitats of low-land forests, and generally live in groups of 5 to 6 monkeys. Each of these groups has their own territory. During pre-historic era some of these howler monkeys were considered to be divine and many sculptures have been found in evidence depicting them as ‘howler monkey gods’. But sadly they are an endangered species today.
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