The Northern Muriqui: Meeting the Rarest Primate in the Americas

Ask even devoted wildlife travelers to name the rarest primate in the Americas and few will answer correctly. It is not a monkey of the Amazon. It is the northern muriqui — Brachyteles hypoxanthus — a large, tawny, slow-moving ape-like monkey of the south-eastern mountains, of which perhaps a thousand remain on Earth.

Everything about the muriqui disarms. They are the largest primates in the Americas, yet famously peaceful: groups spend their days feeding, resting and embracing, with a social tolerance so striking that primatologists call them the hippies of the forest. Watching a group move through the canopy — deliberate, silent, swinging with a grace that seems too slow for the distances they cross — is one of the great primate experiences on Earth.

And here is the secret at the heart of our mountains: a population of northern muriquis survives in and around Itatiaia, in Rio de Janeiro State — documented through photographic records and still encountered by those who walk the right forests with patience. It is the species’ only foothold in the state, a remnant of a range that once covered the region.

We make no promises — a thousand animals in mountain forest are not a scheduled performance. But the Apex expedition walks their country with guides who know their trees, and the possibility alone changes the air. Some sightings are sightings. A muriqui is a meeting.