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Word of the Week (121): ENTELLUS (probability 14915), by David Sutton

Let's finish our look at simians with a few more exotic primates. The ENTELLUS is a name for a long-tailed Asian monkey, the grey LANGUR. For reasons unclear to me it takes its name from the Trojan hero Entellus who features in Virgil's Aeneid. Another name for this monkey is the HANUMAN; the name here comes from the great Indian epic, the Ramayana, Hanuman being a monkey god who aids the hero Rama in his war against the demon king Ravana.

A HOOLOCK is a small black GIBBON found in the mountains of Assam. Gibbons in general can be referred to as HYLOBATES ('tree-goers' from Greek hylo, wood, plus bainein, to go); another species of gibbon is the SIAMANG, native to Sumatra.

Smaller monkeys include the TAMARIN of S. America (not to be confused with the TAMARIND, which is a kind of fruit), the CAPUCHIN, another South American moneky with thick hair like a monk's cowl, also known as the SAI, the bushy-tailed, black-and-white GUEREZA of Africa, the brilliantly coloured DOUC of Cochin China, the KIPUNJI, a long-tailed Tanzanian monkey with a crest of erect hair, the nocturnal DURUKULI (or DOUROCOULI), the long-tailed GRIVET, the WANDEROO from the Malabar coast of India, and those most useful vowel dumps, the OUAKARI (or UAKARI), the SAGOUIN (also SAGOIN or SAGUIN), the SAIMIRI, a squirrel-monkey, and the OUISTITI, a kind of marmoset.

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