Description
Human-driven habitat loss threatens other spider monkey species, too. The Central American spider monkey’s diet requires a lot of the fruit that is typically found in the forests that are rapidly diminishing. Another threat for this monkey is the illegal drug trade.
Drug traffickers clear large swaths of forest for cattle ranchers or other operations as a money laundering front, using up 20 to 60 percent of the land in the species’ home region, which runs from Mexico south to Panama. It’s now one of the world’s 25 most endangered primates,
