This year
marked the driest rainy season in the history of the monkey project. The photo
below is the menu for the monkeys in July, 2014. No succulent fruits: they were
eating the wind dispersed seeds of Luehea and the hard seeds
of monkey's comb and achiote fruits - foods they normally don't even bother to
sample. There were hardly any insects available either, though they found some
grasshoppers and paper wasp larvae. There seems to be a general trend for the
weather to be hotter and drier, and for greater irregularity in the timing of
the fruiting of plants in the monkeys' diet. Notice how dry the undergrowth is
in the middle of the rainy season this year!
