Tumbili

Hi! My name is Tumbili, and I’m a black-and-white colobus monkey. I live along the equator in Africa. We monkeys live together in troops of three to fifteen monkeys. One male takes care of all the females and the babies. The male howls and leaps around the trees every morning and evening to make sure no other males come near his troop—he can be heard up to a mile away!

Colobus Monkey Facts

Here are some fun facts about monkeys like me:

  • I’m the only species of monkey that doesn’t have any thumbs! Without thumbs I am easily able to swing through the tops of branches with all four limbs.
  • Baby black-and-white colobus monkeys are born all white.
  • Our bushy tails are often longer than we are.
  • We have huge three- or four-part stomachs, and they are always full. We need to eat lots and have such a large stomach in order to get enough nutrients from the leaves we eat. The food in our stomachs is often a quarter of our weight!

Class: Mammalia (mammal)
Order: Primate
Family: Cercopithecidae
Genus: Colobus
Species: There are four different species of colobus monkeys.
Size: 18–28 inches (46–71 cm); tail: 20–40 inches (51–101 cm)
Weight: 17–32 pounds (7.6–14.5 kg)
Diet: Leaves, stems, bark, flowers, buds, shoots, fruits and some aquatic plants
Habitat: Forests, swamps, and moist savannahs across equilateral Africa

Character Trait

Ever heard the saying “monkey business”? Well, this monkey wants to remind you—no more monkey business! God doesn’t want us to be lazy. He wants us to have hands that are willing to get to work and get the job done. Working hard pleases the Lord. We need to be wise and have hands that are willing to work.

Verse

“Commit your works to the Lord” (Proverbs 16:3).

Apologetics Focus

Many people want to know where they came from; who were their grandparents and great-grandparents and great-great-grandparents? But can we go back even further than that? Can we know who our first parents were? Yes! The Bible gives us the answer. In Genesis we read that God created Adam and Eve, the first two people. They are the first parents of everyone on earth!

But evolutionists believe that people evolved from ape-like creatures (apes look like monkeys, but they don’t have tails). But people didn’t evolve from ape-like creatures. Now, many evolutionists will say that they’ve found some fossils in Africa that show an ape-like creature turning into a human but, really, these fossils are just bones. All scientists come to these bones with ideas about how they got there. Evolutionists come to the bones thinking they got there by millions of years of evolution. But those who start with God’s Word come to the fossils knowing that God created everything and that we didn’t evolve. They have never found a fossil that shows an ape-like creature turning into a person, and they never will because we didn’t evolve. We were created by God.

Find Out More

  • To learn more about one supposed evolutionary ancestor of humans, called “Lucy,” you can read this article: .
  • Make a Monkey Marionette.
  • Learn more about other Primates.