In the rain forest, especially of South America, live the greatest acrobats on Earth. In the Old World not even monkeys can hang by their tails; but here the coonlike kinkajou, a porcupine, and two tree-dwelling anteaters can.
American monkeys, called ceboids, include marmosets, owl monkeys, sakis, spider monkeys. squirrel monkeys, howlers, and others. Among them the star is the skinny, intelligent spider monkey. Hanging head down from a climbing liana, he can launch himself 50 feet and lightly catch a bough on which he has spied a shining berry. No owl monkey or saki can do that. for their arms are shorter and their tails less skilled. The marmosets, smallest of monkeys. travel in noisy gangs. They leap well, but they land against a tree trunk, with arms and legs outspread.
Many hunters walk among the branches. These include the kinkajou, cousin to the raccoon, and the coati, who often goes down to the ground on fishing trips. Two anteaters, the golden-brown tamandua and the silky anteater, live here too. And there is a climbing cat, the dainty ocelot.
All these animals hunt the plant-eaters. among them the coendou, a porcupine; frolicsome squirrels like the small Sciurillus; and the two- and three-toed sloths. Slow and dull of eye, ear, and wit, the sloths hang upside down by powerful, clawed hands. Slowly they move among the branches, munching leaves. They cannot fight or flee from enemies like the eagle and jaguar, but the green, mossy alga that grows on their long fur camouflages them among the leaves.
Even reptiles of the canopy are graceful and daring. The tiny, chameleon-like ho-ko-bee lizard can leap up and land on the under side of a branch far above, clinging with adhesive pads on his feet. The iguana can plunge 80 feet into a pool. The green tree boa and the parakeet snake pursue prey to the ends of the tiniest twigs.
All through the canopy, also, dart bright-colored, noisy birds that seldom venture into the shadows below or the eagle-haunted upper air.
