As I sat on a picket chair in a railed picket platform 50 ft up from the bottom in a tree within the jungle with a brown paper bag containing three bananas, I noticed them. A troop of spider monkeys have been about 4 tree canopies away from me! And I somewhat despised monkeys at the moment after seeing a chimpanzee within the D.C. zoo after I was younger do one thing completely disgusting after being so human-like earlier than that.
I used to be volunteering for a botanist who was engaged on his thesis for Duke University. He has since grow to be a famend botanist with the research he’s achieved proper within the jungle by which I used to be sitting, Barro Colorado Island, owned by the Smithsonian, within the Panama Canal. Robin Foster is his title and my task at this second, was to look at whether or not the monkeys would climb a Black Palm tree, infamous for its 3 to 4 inch black spines everywhere in the trunk that really feel such as you simply laid your hand on a porcupine in the event you touched it, to get the banana that was placed on it. In this case really, the spines have been properly worn down in such an old tree, however that’s irrelevant for this story.
The monkeys have been coming! No, they weren’t heading for the tree however in direction of me! Loose monkeys! I sat very nonetheless within the chair by the lengthy ladder you climb to rise up there and frightened that they smelled the bananas in my bag and would go for them as a substitute of the one on the black palm tree. Now they have been on my tree on a protracted department with a mature feminine within the lead. Then she was sitting inside arms attain and searching me within the eye, her followers in single file behind her.
As we silently stared at one another she seemed down in direction of the highest of the ladder after which seemed again at me. She did that once more. And once more! So I seemed there.
Panama has 14 totally different sorts of toxic snakes. I didn’t know what all of them appear like. And what the monkey was , that I now noticed, was a snake! It was proper on the prime of the ladder, my solely escape route! Wild monkeys and a snake have been accompanying me on a 5-by-5 foot platform 50 ft within the air with no approach out!
Now I checked out her with desperation on my face, realizing how a lot alike we have been! After all, she had discovered the snake and was clearly watching it as intently as I ever would!
I stayed completely nonetheless. She nonetheless would possibly be capable to determine out concerning the bag with bananas.
She then started walking alongside the rail which surrounded the sq. platform and previous my brown bag with bananas in them, winding up behind me. One by one her troop adopted her and moved onto branches extending behind me. I nonetheless seemed largely ahead with out transferring as a result of I couldn’t see the place the snake was as a result of a thick vertical trunk hid it from my view. And I didn’t need to make eye contact with one other monkey who would possibly understand it as a risk or a problem. As lengthy as I stayed nonetheless I knew no snake would chunk me as a result of with out movement a snake isn’t triggered to strike, is what I believed.
Then I heard a loud rhythmic shaking of the branches behind me and turned to see what was taking place. The feminine monkey and others have been shaking the branches whereas dealing with away from me! I couldn’t see something uncommon. A monkey wasn’t being singled out for dangerous conduct and different animals weren’t within the tree.
But all of the sudden I noticed it! Falling from the tree! The distinct considerably coiled form of a snake! The monkeys had adopted the snake to some extent the place it was not hanging on to the tree tightly and took full benefit of it! It was fantastic to see! What I had perceived as presumably threatening, the monkeys, had eliminated the second threatening merchandise, the snake! Now monkeys rated No. 1 as buddy as a substitute of foe!
I marveled on the tenacious approach the feminine monkey took care of the snake and puzzled if she was defending me, as she moved from my tree to the subsequent together with her followers. And I believed how humorous it was that Robin had mentioned he’d by no means seen a snake on Barro Colorado after I had requested him earlier than this occurred as a result of this was the second snake (and the final snake) I noticed whereas I used to be on the island!
The monkeys bought the banana out of the black palm tree and I used to be pleased for them! And I’m wondering now, if she hadn’t come alongside when she did, would I’ve been bitten by a toxic snake I simply didn’t see? I’ll by no means know, however I consider she got here alongside to save lots of me!
