The tufted capuchin’s of the Hyacinth Valley in Brazil are very smart monkeys. Thus the nickname. They’ve learned how to harvest pine nuts and then use tools to open them. They start by tearing the outer husks off the nuts and then leave them in the sun to dry for about a week. When they return to the dried nuts, they place them on a large flat rock surface, which acts as an anvil. They then use much harder igneous rock boulders as their tools to smash open the nuts. Only chimpanzees are known to make more intelligent use of tools. I’ve posted a few shots in the past of the action with the rocks. This guy was simply posing for the camera against that nice blue sky. Nikon D300 with Nikkor 200-400mm lens (at 490mm with 1.4 teleconverter) ISO 400, f/5.6 at 1/1250th of a second.
Being as smart as these guys are, perhaps they have a foolproof method to hide said nuts. It was really fun watching them crack them open, I only wish the light was better as it was mid day and very sunny.
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I wonder how often its cache of nuts (drying in the sun for a week) is ripped off by another monkey?
Being as smart as these guys are, perhaps they have a foolproof method to hide said nuts. It was really fun watching them crack them open, I only wish the light was better as it was mid day and very sunny.
With him looking straight into the camera I wonder if he was sizing YOU up, wondering just how smart is this guy?!