In a long-ago Weekly listing for the Santa Ana Zoo, the writer snarkily summed up the wee animal population at the Prentice Park venue as a drunk monkey in a tree, or something like that.
The one thing you can say about monkeys there is they sure are cute, and in the case of a crested capuchin (Cebus robustus)
born there on May 7, quite rare, too.
]
Indeed, if the city zoo's staff can be considered proud surrogate parents, they proudly posted this photo of mom and babe on their website:
The newest crested capuchin, which is considered endangered
by the International Union for Conservation of Nature, is the third from the species born at Santa Ana Zoo.
According to the zoo's website:
Crested capuchin monkeys are a medium sized primate native to rapidly
disappearing forests along the Atlantic coast of Brazil. In the wild,
capuchins feed on a wide variety of fruits, insects, seeds, leaves, and
even small mammals.
Consider yourself warned, Jose Solorio!
The baby is the latest in a line of crested capuchins Brazil's government brought to the U.S. in 2001 for a breeding program aimed at saving them. They are actually on loan from the Brazilian Institute of Environment.
While they remain perched there next to the 5 freeway, the capuchins demonstrate to visitors the county cultural resource's role in international efforts to save and educate
the masses “about such unique and inquisitive animals,” says Santa Ana zookeeper Dina Orbison.
Just steer clear of that drunk cousin in the tree, babe.
Follow OC Weekly on Twitter @ocweekly or on Facebook!
OC Weekly Editor-in-Chief Matt Coker has been engaging, enraging and entertaining readers of newspapers, magazines and websites for decades. He spent the first 13 years of his career in journalism at daily newspapers before “graduating” to OC Weekly in 1995 as the alternative newsweekly’s first calendar editor.