Animal Diversity Web

Ge­o­graphic Range

Cebus alb­ifrons is found in north­west­ern South Amer­ica, in­clud­ing Ecuador, Colom­bia, Venezuela, east­ern Peru, and much of Ama­zon­ian Brazil (Hill, 1960).

• Biogeographic Regions
• neotropical
  • native

Habi­tat

White-fronted ca­puchins are found in rain­for­est habi­tats from sea-level to 2000 me­ters (Hill, 1960).

• Terrestrial Biomes
• rainforest

Phys­i­cal De­scrip­tion

Cebus alb­ifrons is one of the smaller species of the ca­puchin group. The head is small in com­par­i­son to the body and the torso is slen­der with long, nar­row limbs. C. alb­ifrons has a com­plex color pat­tern. Over­all they are light brown on the back with a lighter ven­tral side, often in shades of yel­low and red. Dor­sal fur is long and soft, which con­trasts to the short and coarser fur of the ven­ter. The crown of the head has a round, dark patch. Fe­males may have a tuft of hair an­te­rior to this patch. The face is cov­ered by sparse, pale col­ored hair under which the peach col­ored flesh is vis­i­ble. A thin bor­der of white sur­rounds the face. A stripe, slightly darker than the body color, runs par­al­lel to the spine. The limbs are a range of yel­lows and red browns. Sex­ual di­mor­phism oc­curs in the species with the males being larger than the fe­males, the tail of the male may be lighter at the tip. Sea­sonal coat changes can occur; in the dry sea­son, the coat is over­all paler, in the rainy sea­son the coat dark­ens (Hill, 1960).

• Other Physical Features
• endothermic
• homoiothermic
• bilateral symmetry

• Sexual Dimorphism
• male larger

• Range mass

  1100 to 3300 g

  38.77 to 116.30 oz

Re­pro­duc­tion

As in other Cebus species, C. alb­ifrons does not ap­pear to have a breed­ing sea­son, though most births may co­in­cide with the dry sea­son (Nowak, 1991). Peak mat­ing pe­ri­ods are de­ter­mined by ge­o­graphic lo­ca­tion. Fe­males in es­trus ac­tively re­spond to males who seek to mate. It ap­pears that males may be able to de­tect fe­males in es­trus by chem­i­cal cues in her urine (Smuts et al., 1987).

Cebus alb­ifrons gives birth to a sin­gle young every 1 to 2 years, with a ges­ta­tion pe­riod of about 150 to 160 days. If the in­fant dies shortly after birth, the fe­male mates in the next breed­ing sea­son, but if the in­fant lives, the fe­male post­pones breed­ing an extra year in order to take care of the in­fant (Smuts et al., 1987).

• Key Reproductive Features
• iteroparous
• gonochoric/gonochoristic/dioecious (sexes separate)
• sexual
• viviparous

• Breeding interval

  Cebus albifrons gives birth to a single young every 1 to 2 years

• Breeding season

  Peak mating periods are determined by geographic location.

• Average number of offspring

  1

• Average number of offspring

  1

  AnAge

• Range gestation period

  150 to 160 days

• Average age at sexual or reproductive maturity (female)
  Sex: female

  1310 days

  AnAge

• Average age at sexual or reproductive maturity (male)
  Sex: male

  1310 days

  AnAge

In­fant care is not re­stricted to the ma­ter­nal fe­male in C. alb­ifrons. Other group mem­bers will come to the aid of in­fants in dis­tress and dom­i­nant males often care for in­fants. When in­fants are under 2 months old other fe­males care for, nurse, and feed them (Smuts et al., 1987).

Males dis­perse from their natal group upon reach­ing sex­ual ma­tu­rity, fe­males re­main with their natal group.

• Parental Investment
• pre-fertilization
  • provisioning
  • protecting
    • female
• pre-hatching/birth
  • provisioning
    • female
  • protecting
    • female
• pre-weaning/fledging
  • provisioning
    • female
  • protecting
    • male
    • female
• pre-independence
  • protecting
    • male
    • female
• post-independence association with parents

Lifes­pan/Longevity

• Average lifespan
  Sex: female
  Status: captivity

  40.5 years

  Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research

• Average lifespan
  Sex: male
  Status: captivity

  25.0 years

  Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research

• Average lifespan
  Status: captivity

  44.0 years

  Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research

• Average lifespan
  Status: wild

  40.0 years

  Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research

Be­hav­ior

Group size ranges from 15 to 35 mem­bers. Groups are typ­i­cally led by a dom­i­nant male and fe­male. Ag­gres­sive in­ter­ac­tions con­sti­tute only about 10% of so­cial in­ter­ac­tions. White-fronted ca­puchins are highly so­cial and spend a lot of time in rec­i­p­ro­cal groom­ing, how­ever, dom­i­nant males and fe­males re­ceive a large pro­por­tion of groom­ing and rarely groom other in­di­vid­u­als (Smuts et al., 1987).

The small size of white-fronted ca­puchins makes them vul­ner­a­ble to larger preda­tors. These ca­puchins have adopted a loud alarm call which scares some preda­tors off and may warn oth­ers in the group about the pres­ence of preda­tors (Smuts et al., 1987).

• Key Behaviors
• motile
• social
• dominance hierarchies

Com­mu­ni­ca­tion and Per­cep­tion

• Perception Channels
• tactile
• chemical

Food Habits

Fruit is the main food and is gen­er­ally pref­ered over other avail­able foods. C. alb­ifrons oc­ca­sion­ally eats in­sects or other small in­ver­te­brates. Ac­cord­ing to a year-long study in Peru's Manu Na­tional Park, white-fronted ca­puchins only seek out in­ver­te­brates when trav­el­ing to fruit­ing trees, or when droughts re­duce fruit avail­abil­ity. Other food sources in times of drought in­clude palm nuts, figs, and nec­tar. (Ter­borgh, 1992).

• Primary Diet
• herbivore
  • frugivore

• Animal Foods
• insects

• Plant Foods
• seeds, grains, and nuts
• fruit
• nectar

Eco­nomic Im­por­tance for Hu­mans: Pos­i­tive

White-fronted ca­puchins help to dis­perse the seeds of fruits they eat in their feces. This may carry propag­ules to an area that might not nor­mally be reached, far from the perime­ter of the tree. (Ter­borgh, 1992).

Eco­nomic Im­por­tance for Hu­mans: Neg­a­tive

None known, Cebus alb­ifrons do not raid human food crops.

Con­ser­va­tion Sta­tus

Be­cause they are re­stricted to rain­for­est habi­tats, pop­u­la­tions of C. alb­ifrons are threat­ened by habi­tat de­struc­tion due to log­ging and for­est clear­ing. They are not cur­rently en­dan­gered be­cause their habi­tats con­tinue to be fairly wide­spread and pop­u­la­tion num­bers re­main fairly high. White-fronted ca­puchins are also hunted for meat in some areas. While this hunt­ing is not ex­ces­sive and sim­ply main­tains the pop­u­la­tion at a slightly lower level, it is a po­ten­tial threat (Smuts et al., 1987).

• IUCN Red List

  Least Concern
  More information

• IUCN Red List

  Least Concern
  More information

• US Federal List

  No special status

• CITES

  Appendix II

Other Com­ments

The so­cial or­ga­ni­za­tion of the genus Cebus has been found to closely re­sem­ble that of old world mon­keys. A 1966 study has pro­posed that this is the re­sult of sim­i­lar diets and risk of pre­da­tion (Smuts, etal., 1987).

Con­trib­u­tors

Michelle Mijal (au­thor), Uni­ver­sity of Michi­gan-Ann Arbor, Phil Myers (ed­i­tor), Mu­seum of Zo­ol­ogy, Uni­ver­sity of Michi­gan-Ann Arbor.

Ref­er­ences

Hill, W. 1960. Pri­mates, Com­par­a­tive Anatomy and Tax­on­omy, IV Ce­bidae Part A.. Lon­don: The Ed­in­burgh Uni­ver­sity Press.

Nowak, R. 1991. Walker's Mam­mals of the World. Bal­ti­more and Lon­don: The Johns Hop­kins Uni­ver­sity Press.

Smuts, B., D. Ch­eney, R. Sey­farth, R. Wrang­ham, T. Struh­saker. 1987. Pri­mate So­ci­eties. Chicago: The Uni­ver­sity of Chicago Press.

Ter­borgh, J. 1992. Di­ver­sity and the Trop­i­cal Rain­for­est. New York: Sci­en­tific Amer­i­can Li­brary.