Description

Food is essential for life, and for red-tailed monkeys (Cercopithecus ascanius) life is not easy. Yet despite their adverse circumstances– food scarcity, competition, and deforestation– they thrive.

In a tiny forest fragment, a remnant of once vast Ugandan rainforests, animals compete fiercely for limited resources in a degrading habitat. With little food to eat, every energetically costly activity must be carefully scrutinized– from maintaining health, to daily travel, to reproduction. Against the odds, this population of red-tailed monkeys is booming, an enigma that is the focus of my research. Mothers with nursing young are particularly astonishing, as they must eat for two while their juveniles are temporarily sheltered from the harsh reality of adulthood. This image portrays just such juveniles, playful and blissfully unaware of their future predicament, watching as their mothers forage relentlessly in the canopy in order to provide for them.