Old World monkeys | Cercopithecidae

Apen van de Oude Wereld | Cercopitécidos

Monkeys with close-set nostrils that face downwards, an opposable thumb and flat nails on every finger and toe. Bare hardened sitting pads on the haunches let the animal sit and even sleep for hours; the tail is never prehensile. The cheekteeth carry two transverse ridges one behind the other, suited to leaves as well as fruit, and part of the family has roomy cheek pouches into which food can be stuffed quickly and chewed out at leisure elsewhere. They live in troops with a clear rank order in which grooming maintains the social bond. The only European species is the Barbary macaque: heavily furred, with the tail reduced to a stump, high in cedar forest and on bare mountainsides in the Maghreb, and with a small introduced population on the Rock of Gibraltar. In that species the males carry the infants about as well.