Owl Monkeys

Dr. Fernandez-Duque is a biological anthropologist with a general interest in understanding the evolution and maintenance of social systems. His main research interest is to examine the mechanisms that maintain social monogamy and the role that sexual selection may have had in the evolution of this unusual mating system. He is motivated to study living primates as an approach to understanding the evolution of human behavior. He is particularly interested in male-female relationships, pair bonding and paternal care in humans and non-human primates. He was born in Argentina earned degrees at the University of Buenos Aires, a Ph.D. in Animal Behavior at the University of California in Davis, USA, postdoctoral fellow at Harvard University (David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies and Department of Human Evolutionary Biology) and the Zoological Society of San Diego (Institute for Conservation Research). He has been a Researcher at the Center for Applied Ecology (CECOAL) of Argentina and a Visiting Professor at the Universidad Nacional de Formosa, a member of the faculty at the Department of Anthropology in the University of Pennsylvania and now is at the Department of Anthropology at Yale University. The Owl Monkey Project and the Comparative Socioecology of Monogamous Primates Project are providing invaluable data to examine those questions through field research in the Ecuadorian Amazon and the Argentinean Chaco. Additionally, the research on the demography, population biology and life-history of howler monkeys in Venezuela and Argentina offers another model to examine mating systems and sexual selection by focusing this time on a very different taxon that lives in multi-female groups. His extended field work as a biologist in Northern Argentina has led me to take notice of the urgent need to action regarding issues of conservation and education in the Argentinean Chaco. He established a foundation (Fundacion ECO) in Formosa aimed at addressing these important issues.

Part I. Paleontology, Phylogeography, Taxonomy and Historical Perspectives on the Study of Owl Monkeys.-   Cebid or Pitheciid: An Evolutionary History of Aotus, the Owl Monkey.-  Phylogeography of the Owl Monkey.- Indigenous Records of Owl Monkeys, Early Explorers, Historical and Current Review of the Studies of Owl Monkeys (15th-20th centuries).- The Owl Monkey Project of Argentina: 30 years of field research, education and conservation.-  Taxonomy and Distribution.- Part II. Morphology, Genetics, Endocrinology, Circadian biology.- Genomics.- Diet, Dentition, and Jaw Shape in Aotus.- Molecular Phylogenetics.-  Reproductive Ecology and Behavioral Endocrinology of Owl Monkeys.- Behavioral, Physiological and Morphological Thermoregulatory Adaptations.-  Part III. Behavioral Ecology.- Field Methods for the Study of Owl Monkeys.- Patterns of nocturnal activity by night monkeys (Aotus spp.) in the tropics.- Cathemerality in Azara's owl monkeys of Argentina..- Social Behavior in Owl Monkeys.- Paternal care in owl monkeys.- Dispersal: a critical life-history stage influencing populations, social dynamics, and individual fitness.- The great unknown - what we (do not) know about floaters..- Intraspecific communication among owl monkeys..- Owl Monkey Diet and Feeding Ecology..- Part IV.- Correlates of population densities and occupancy rates in night monkeys.- Population Status and Conservation of the Panamanian Night Monkey Aotus zonalis..- Population assessment and strategies for the conservation of Nancy Ma's night monkey populations at the Colombian-Peruvian Amazon border.- Conservation of Aotus sp. in anthropogenic habitats in the Andes.- Trade in owl monkeys.- Part V. Integration of Research on Captive and Wild Populations.- The owl monkey colony at the Michale Keeling Center for Comparative Medicine.- The owl monkeys of the DuMond Conservancy in Miami, USA - a scientific, educational and community asset.

"I can highly recommend this book to anyone interested in nocturnal primates in general and owl monkeys in particular, and to anyone interested in platyrrhines, to complement the information available on other Neotropical primate taxa and to allow comparisons to be made. Many of the chapters are also of great relevance to zoologists who work in fields other than primatology." (Eckhard W. Heymann, Primates, May 21, 2024)