Patricia C. Wright

Before primatologist Patricia Chapple Wright became the world's foremost expert on lemurs, she was enchanted by another primate--Aotus, the owl monkey, or "monkey of the night." But along her journey to discover the behavior of these unique nocturnal creatures, Wright finds more than she expected about family, human nature, and herself. It all starts in a New York City pet shop when Wright and her husband buy an owl monkey whose lively and rambunctious ways soon lead the young couple to South America to acquire him a mate. But while Wright's monkey family is growing, her own begins to fall apart when her husband leaves her and her daughter. Undeterred by her lack of academic experience, Wright sets out as a single mother to study primate behavior in the wild, including a year at a research station in the remote jungles of Peru. There she encounters jaguars, poisonous snakes, army ants, and massive floods that threaten her and her daughter's lives, as well as moments of great clarity and beauty. From New York City in the 1960s to the depths of the Amazon in the 1970s and 80s, this story of one woman's transformation from Brooklyn housewife to an accomplished scientist will captivate fans of Jane Goodall, Dian Fossey, and Birut Galdikas. High Moon over the Amazon is a thrilling memoir of adventure, inspiration, and of falling in love with a species not so unlike our own. "This is a book you must read. Against all odds Patricia Wright succeeded in observing the previously unknown behavior of the mysterious and enchanting little owl monkey, the 'monkey of the night.' With the skill of a born story teller she describes hair raising adventures deep in the Amazon rainforest--and the problems of raising a child far from civilization. You will laugh and cry and marvel at the determination, courage, and scientific integrity of this amazing woman."--Jane Goodall, PhD, DBE, Founder of the Jane Goodall Institute & UN Messenger of Peace "Heart-warming, honest, deeply inquisitive, and chock-a-block with the absolutely insane adventure known as field biology. As a conservationist, as a primatologist, no question about it, Patricia Wright is a heavy-weight contender. High Moon Over the Amazon proves her a great storyteller as well. This is a seriously fun, smart book." --Steven Kotler, New York Times bestselling author of Abundance: The Future Is Better Than You Think "A naive young American woman with a pet monkey goes to the Amazon to find it a mate. This is the improbable beginning of an important scientific career--Pat Wright's. High Moon over the Amazon is a lively, exotic, inspirational tale about dreams that, against all odds, become reality."--David Quammen, author of Spillover and The Song of the Dodo

My Quest to Understand the Monkeys of the Night

High Moon Over the Amazon

Elwyn L. Simons

Sharon Gursky-Doyen

Tarsiiformes, or tarsiers for short, are a group of living species of special interest to primatologists because their combination of derived and ancient characters make them pivotal to understanding the roots of primate evolution. These small-bodied, nocturnal, solitary creatures resemble lower primates in their behavior but genetically, DNA evidence aligns them more closely with higher primates, such as monkeys, apes, and humans. These astounding creatures exhibit an ability found in no other living mammal3/4they can turn their heads 180 degrees in either direction to see both prey and predators. The world's only exclusive carnivorous primate, they eat live food (primarily insects, but the occasional vertebrate, such as lizards, snakes, or frogs will also do). This unique combination of behavior and anatomy makes the tarsier an especially interesting and controversial animal for study among primate behaviorists, evolutionists, and taxonomists, who view the tarsiers as "living fossils" that link past and present, lower and higher, primates in the long chain of evolutionary history. This new volume presents alternative and contrasting perspectives on the most debated questions that have arisen in tarsier studies. Top researchers bring together perspectives from anatomical, behavioral, genetic, and conservation studies in this new and exciting addition to the understanding of primate evolution. This book is a volume in the Rutgers Series on Human Evolution, edited by Robert Trivers, Lee Cronk, Helen Fischer, and Lionel Tiger.

Patricia C. Wright

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