Lupé’s forest is big and it has many different kinds of plants.  Every day, Lupé and her family wake up and they eat fruit and insects.  Then, they start going in search of food and water and places to rest.  She spends time with her family learning where to go and what she can eat. The area they forage in is called a home range.  It is very large.

 

Lupé has to learn how to get her food.  She has to learn about the dangers in her forest.  Some of her cousins already know and they warn her.  Granny Francis is especially good at recognizing snakes.  Lupé has a lot to learn.

 

Lupé usually stays near her mother, but sometimes she likes to explore with the cousins.  If there is any danger, Julio or Scarface will chase her back.  They don’t want her to get hurt.

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In this wildlife refuge there is a small plantain plantation, a section of land where only plantains grow,  where Lupé’s troop sleeps every night.  Plantains are related to bananas, but they harder, so people usually cook to soften them before eating them.  The people who own the reserve planted the plantains for pigs they raised long ago.  When the people stopped raising pigs, they gave the plantain plantations to the monkeys.  The plantains are a big meal and tasty, so Lupé smashes them and rolls them on tree branches to soften them enough to eat.   

 

It is very strange for Lupé's family to eat plantains.  Most monkeys never eat bananas or plantains because they do not grow in the forests of Costa Rica.  They do not naturally grow in the Americas.  Bananas and plantains come from South East Asia.  But people brought bananas and plantains to Costa Rica many years ago and the monkeys discovered they like to eat them. 

 

More than the plantains, Lupé likes to eat the sweet nectar in the plantain flowers.  Each baby plantain has a little cup with a little drop of nectar that tastes like a very sweet banana.  Lupé lifts up the flower petal and pulls off the baby plantain to lick the nectar.  Sometimes there are tiny, stingless bees on the flower.  Lupé can eat them too!

 

The plantains have big, long leaves that reach up to the sky.  As they age, the leaves begin to droop and eventually die back, hanging from the tree stock.  Lots of insects hide in the dead leaves.  Hanging by her prehensile tail, a tail that grasps and can hold onto things, Lupé lifts up the huge leaves bit-by-bit and carefully opens the curled edges to find small insects.  Sometimes she gets a spider, sometimes a cricket.  One time there was a small bat clinging to a dead leaf who quickly flew off.  Lupé was so surprised she made a small alarm bark: “Huh!”

 

Lupé also knows she can “fish” for spiders.  Spiders often spin their webs between the plantain trees.  First they attach long strands of silk to one plantain tree and then connect it to another plantain tree.  Then, they weave their web, tacking small sections of silk in a large, expanding circle.  The spiders can catch insects flying around in the plantains.  When Lupé goes fishing for spiders she gently loosens one of the long silk strands from a plantain tree.  Then slowly, pulling up the web bit-by-bit, she “reels” in the spider closer and closer.  When it gets close enough, she can pop it into her mouth.

 

There is also water inside the plantains.  If Lupé bites into the leaf base or breaks it open, she can suck water out.  The plantains are such a good place to find food and water!  One of the things she likes to do is jump onto a leaf really hard.  It makes a loud crashing sound.  Sometimes she can scare one of her cousins.