Highly ordered troops systematically scour Amazonia's forests for food.

Statistics
Length: 32-56cm (excluding tail) Weight: 1.3-4.8kg

Physical description
Brown Capuchin Monkeys can vary in colour from yellow to light brown, to black, with shoulders and underbellies lighter than the rest of the body. A patch of coarse black hair, otherwise know as a cap, crowns their head. One of the common names for the species, tufted capuchin monkey, comes from the black tufts of hair growing above their ears. Individuals have varying facial patterns but black sideburns extending from the cap are characteristic of the species. Another identifier is that they carry their tail in a tight coil

Distribution
Brown Capuchin Monkeys are found across a large area of South America. They are the most commonly seen monkey in Amazonia.

Habitat
Brown Capuchin monkeys tend to inhabit the understorey and midcanopy of moist subtropical or tropical forests.

Diet
Capuchins eat the widest range of food among New World monkeys. When a group forages for food in a patch of forest, they spread out through the canopy, from the low understorey to the tops of the tallest trees, to search systematically for anything edible. They mainly eat fruit and nuts but will also consume vegetation, eggs, seeds, insects, reptiles, birds, and small mammals according to need. They have large square molars with thick enamel which are well adapted to cracking nuts. They also use tools, such as rocks, to crack nuts open. When food is scarce they depend on eating the pith of palm fronds.

Behaviour
Brown capuchin monkeys live in the trees in groups of between 8 and 15 animals. Although there may be equal numbers of males and females in the group, it is led and protected by a dominant male. Capuchin monkeys are more intelligent than other species of similarly sized monkeys. As can be expected of intelligent, social creatures capuchins have a wide repertoire of calls: barks, growls, loud 'caws', screams, chatters, trills, twitters, whistles. Many of these calls mean something specific. They also communicate by scents and often urinate on their hands then rub their feet and fur.

Reproduction
Females mate preferentially with the dominant males whilst other males only have mating opportunities when the dominant male is absent. Although males are the dominant gender, it is the female who decides when and with whom to mate. In order to do this they monitor male smell to detect maturity and when the female is at the peak of her receptivity, she follows the dominant male soliciting him using distinct calls, facial expressions and postures. Pregnancy lasts 150-160 days and the females usually give birth to one infant per gestation period. Once the infant is born it remains close to its mother for up to a year. When young juvenile males are sexually mature they have to leave the group in which they grew up in and mate into a new group.

Conservation status
The brown capuchin monkey is listed as Lower Risk on the IUCN Endangered Species Red list.