“Let me see if my little friends are home,” said Jorge, our guide, as he stepped off the trail into a hidden clearing, dark and still, like a miniature temple in the forest. His “friends,” a trio of Panamanian night monkeys, were indeed home, and when my eyes adjusted to the dimness and found theirs, the rest of the world fell away. It was a rare gift, something even most Panamanians never experience. Tiny—only a foot long and under two pounds—they peered out at me from their tree cavity with the large eyes of night creatures, gently pushing past each other to get a look at the much larger primate looking back at them. Of all the species I have observed in the wild, encounters with other primates are somehow different. There is an ineffable current of recognition that connects us, a mutually felt sense of “this one is like me,” a whispered reminder that we are not something separate from nature, but just as much a part of this endless river of life as the rainforest, the birds, and my new little friends.
PANAMANIAN NIGHT MONKEY (Aotus zonalis)