Lilac Male White-fronted Capuchin Monkey

These capuchin monkeys have flexible behaviors and modify their feeding strategies depending on where their food is present at that moment. In the dry season, when fruits are rare, Humboldt’s white-fronted capuchin monkeys look for palm leaves that curl into tubes as the leaves dry out. These leaf tubes are the perfect housing for insects that seek shelter from the heat. The monkeys will spend about half an hour at a palm tree, painstakingly looking for these leaf tubes and stripping them of any insects or spiders that are hiding there. They look for maggots in rotting carcasses and break open rock-like termite nests to get grubs. This shows that even if food sources are hidden in a smelly carcass or an underground nest, these monkeys find a way to eat these foods—even if it takes a lot of energy.