Let's start with the fact that the very origin of the name "monkey" is very curious. Until the 16th century, we called the monkey "opica", by the way, the Czechs still call it that. After the Russian traveler Athanasius Nikitin returned from his famous trip to India, he brought into use the Persian name "abuzina", meaning literally "father of fornication". Subsequently, the Persian "abuzina" was actually transformed into a "monkey".
The body length of a monkey, depending on its species, can range from 15 cm (for a pygmy igunka) to 2 m (for a gorilla). Also, the mass of a monkey can be from 150 grams in the smallest representatives of the species, up to 275 kg - this is how much huge gorillas weigh.
Many monkeys lead an arboreal lifestyle, that is, they mainly live in trees and, as a result, have a long back, a shortened narrow chest, and thin hip bones. But orangutans and gibbons have a wide chest and massive pelvic bones. Some monkeys have a very long tail, the length of which can even exceed the size of the body, the monkey's tail acts as a balancer when moving between trees. But the monkeys living on the ground have a very short tail. As for monkeys without a tail, all "humanoid" monkeys do not have it (as well as people do not have it).
The body of monkeys is covered with hair of different colors, depending on the species, it can be light brown, red, black and white, gray-olive. Some adult monkeys can turn gray with age, and male monkeys can go bald, again almost like people.
Monkeys have mobile, well-developed upper limbs, very similar to our hands, each with five fingers, and monkeys living in trees have short and large fingers, which allows them to fly comfortably from branch to branch. Monkeys have binocular vision, many of them have black pupils of the eyes.
The teeth of monkeys are also similar to those of humans, narrow-nosed monkeys have 32 teeth, and broad-nosed monkeys have 36. The monkey's brain is also very well developed; among other representatives of the animal world, only dolphins could compete with monkeys in terms of intelligence. Great apes have entire regions of the brain responsible for meaningful actions.
Monkeys communicate with each other using a special signal system, consisting of facial expressions and sounds. The most "talkative" among them are monkeys and capuchins, they have rich facial expressions, are able to express a wide range of feelings.
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