Alouatta arctoidea
Creators: name: Russell A. Mittermeier
name: Anthony B. Rylands
name: Don E. Wilson
Publisher: name: Lynx Edicions
Year: 2013
Subjects: Biodiversity
Taxonomy
Animalia
Chordata
Mammalia
Primates
Atelidae
Alouatta
Alouatta arctoidea

description: 2.
Ursine Red Howler
Alouatta arctoidea
French: Hurleur ourson / German: Barenbrillaffe / Spanish: Mono aullador rojo de Venezuela Other common names: Caracas Howler Monkey, Ursine Howler Monkey; Trinidad Howling / Trinidadian Howler Monkey (insulanus)
Taxonomy. Alouatta seniculus arctoidea Cabrera, 1940,
Venezuela. Restricted by Cabrera in 1957 to the valley of Aragua,state of Aragua, near Caracas.
The diminutive form occurring on the island of Trinidad, and formerly on Tobago (insulanus) is considered a junior synonym. Monotypic.
Distribution. Endemic to Trinidad I and Venezuela E of Lake Maracaibo, along the coast from Falcon State to Miranda State, the northern Mts (Cordillera Oriental, Cordillera Central, and Coro System), and extending S through the Llanos to the Rio Orinoco; it may extend into Arauca State, Colombia.
Descriptive notes. Head-body 45-65 cm, tail 55-68 cm; weight 6-8 kg (males) and 4-5-7 kg (females). The Ursine Red Howleris generally golden-toned to coppery-red on the body, contrasting with a maroon head, shoulders, limbs, and proximal part of the tail. There is no contrasting “saddle.” Crown hairs run completely forward, meeting backward-directed forehead hairs in a forwardly concave “V.” Sexes are similar, although males are generally much larger than females and often have a blackish beard, limbs, and tail. Red howlers on Trinidad are smaller: head—-body 43-5-48-5 cm (males) and 42-8-45-3 cm (females), tail 55-61 cm (males) and 53-60 cm (females); weight 4.7-6-1 kg (males) and 4-1-5-7 kg (females) from data provided by K. Glander. They are not sexually dimorphic, and their pelage is almost uniformly reddish brown.
Habitat. Deciduous forest patches, open woodland, and gallery forest of the Llanos at elevations of 10-1160 m, and may exist in cloud forests along coastal Venezuela up to elevations of 2000 m.
Food and Feeding. Diets of Ursine Red Howlers may consist of up to 70% leaves, with fruits, flowers, and other plant parts making up the remainder.
Breeding. Ovarian cycles of Ursine Red Howlers are c.17 days. When a femaleis receptive, a dominant male stays close to her in consortship for several hours or up to several days. Consortships are briefer with unfamiliar males that have only recently entered a group. Females maintain their distances from unfamiliar males, only briefly approaching them and soliciting mating. Males and females show sexual solicitation, involving tongue flicking. In multimale groups, the dominant male has priority access to females, although sometimes females copulate with a subordinate male or even males from neighboring groups. Births are normally single, after a gestation of 186-194 days. The annual birth rate in a population at Hato Masaguaral in the Venezuelan Llanos was 0-68 births/female/year. Births are not seasonal. Interbirth intervals are 10-5-26 months (average 16-6). The age at sexual maturity is 58-66 months for males and 43-54 months for females. Females give birth for the first time at about five years old, and males rarely sire offspring before they are seven years old.
Activity patterns. Ursine Red Howlers rest during 67-78% of the day, feed during 10- 12-:7%, and travel during 4-4-5-6%, the remainder in other activities.
Movements, Home range and Social organization. Groups of Ursine Red Howlers are unimale—multifemale or multimale-multifemale. In semi-deciduous forest patches of the Llanos, group sizes are 3-13 individuals, with means of 6-3-7-6 individuals; in open woodland, they are 4-16 individuals, with means of 8-5-10-5 individuals; and in semideciduous gallery forest, they are 4-14 individuals, with means of 5-9-8-1 individuals. Groups contain 1-2 adult males and generally 2-3 adult females, with adult male to adult female sex ratios of 1:1-5-2-3. Home ranges in gallery forest are relatively large, c.25 ha, with daily movements of 290-655 m (average 542 m). In open woodland, home ranges are smaller, 4-7 ha, with daily movements of 20-840 m (average 340- 445 m in different studies). Home range overlap can be as high as 64%. Two groups in Trinidad had eight and nine individuals, with four and three adult males, respectively. Their home ranges were 6-7 ha. Studies of roaring contests between groups and between groups and solitary males indicate that besides defending resources (establishing dominance where they meet rather than defending territorial boundaries), they are the way males defend and maintain ownership of groups of females. Resident females also deter entry of females from other groups with roaring contests. Male and female Ursine Red Howlers disperse. Males disperse singly, with half-brothers, or even as father-son pairs. The majority (62%) of males disperse before reaching sexual maturity, but ages of dispersal vary (2-3-19 years); they all leave behind living mothers,sisters, or daughters in the group. The company of a father or brother is evidently a factor in dispersal of immature males; only adult males over five years old disperse singly. When entering a group, which generally involves vicious fights, in a coalition of relatives, males have longer tenure than those that do not. Male invasions are sometimes followed by infanticide, with the new male killing infants less than six months old. Tenures of dominant breeding adult males average 5-1-6-7 years. Groups of Ursine Red Howlers generally contain a maximum of four females. Female immigration is infrequent, and they are rarely able to enter groups after dispersing because resident females prevent them. In cases when they do, the adult female composition has been reduced by the death of a resident female. Females typically breed in their natal group, or they form new groups by pairing up with a solitary male. Because the age when females first breed is about five years (equivalent to the average time of tenure of a breeding male), they rarely have the opportunity to mate with their father, so incest avoidance likely is not the cause of female emigration. Rather, it is probable that competition for resources among females is the cause—the number of breeding positions in a group being limited. Densities in semi-deciduous forest patches and semi-deciduous gallery forest are similar at 25-54 ind/km?*, but in open woodland, densities can be higher at 83-118 ind/km”.
Status and Conservation. CITES Appendix II. Classified as Least Concern on The [UCN Red List. The Ursine Red Howler is widespread and locally common but intensively hunted for meat in some areas. Population size on Trinidad is not known, but it occurs in three wildlife sanctuaries: Trinity Hills, Bush Bush, and Central Range. Surveys in Trinidad in 1994 indicated 24 groups in all, with average group sizes of 3-5-4-6 individuals and densities of 11-83 ind/km? Further surveys in 1997 indicated that the population remained stable. Archeological evidence from Tobago has shown that red howlers used to occur there but have been extirpated.
Bibliography. Agoramoorthy & Hsu (2000), Agoramoorthy & Rudran (1992, 1993, 1995), Braza et al. (1981, 1983), Cabrera (1957), Crockett (1984, 1996), Crockett & Eisenberg (1987), Crockett & Rudran (1987a, 1987b), Crockett & Sekulic (1982, 1984), Defler (2004), Di Fiore et al. (2011), Neville (1972a, 1972b), Neville et al. (1988), Pope (1990), Rudran (1979), Rudran & Fernandez-Duque (2003), Sekulic (1982a, 1982b, 1983a, 1983b), Thorington et al. (1979).
description: Published as part of Russell A. Mittermeier, Anthony B. Rylands & Don E. Wilson, 2013, Atelidae, pp. 484-549 in Handbook of the Mammals of the World – Volume 3 Primates, Barcelona :Lynx Edicions on page 526, DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.5727205