Hello my name's Maya and I am a grey woolly monkey.

I live at the Monkey Sanctuary in Cornwall. I am here today to take you to the Amazon rainforest, where woolly monkeys live in the wild. It can be very dangerous but is very beautiful and extremely interesting. Let me start by telling you a bit about life in the jungle.

Woolly monkeys spend their time up in the top of the rainforest canopy where there is lots of lovely fruit for me and my friends to eat. We are very special monkeys and have a prehensile tail, which means we can use it as an extra arm! The Native Americans call us the five handed monkey and I can hang from my tail easily which leaves my hands free for picking fruit and foraging for insects.

We have a shiny grey coat which is paler on top so that it reflects sunlight and we don't get too hot, and darker underneath so that if a predator is looking up through the trees they can't see us!

Sometimes, the Amazon can be a very scary place to live. Humans come and try to take woolly monkeys away and they are chopping down the trees where we live so that they can farm there. Some monkeys have been taken away to other countries to live in people's houses as pets. Their families and friends miss them very much and sometimes they don't survive because they need their mums and dads to look after them and they have been left behind here in the forest.

Woollies always have to be on the lookout for something that might want to eat us! Anacondas are giant snakes that could gobble me down whole if they get me and harpy eagles are as big as a person and can swoop down and pick me off a branch if I am not careful. If this happens then all the grown-up male monkeys group together and attack the eagle or the snake and as they are very big and strong, they often scare them away.

I will take you on a tour around the Amazon and show you all sorts of exciting things. Why don't you pick one of the fun activities on my page!