Howler monkey sound ressembles loud howls.
Well, their roars are terrifying when experienced at night under a thin tent.
My girlfriend and I were visiting the Yucatan peninsula in Mexico during November and December 2013. This marvelous part of Mexico is known worldwide for its Maya pyramids and temples. One of them is the powerful city of Calakmul, also called ‘the Kingdom of the Snake’.
Calakmul was one of the largest and most powerful ancient cities ever uncovered in the Maya lowlands. And it’s situated deep in the jungle… Trees, trees and trees as far as the eyes can see! Really impressive!
While visiting the site (it has the second highest Maya’s pyramid ever built after Tikal), you are surrounded by monkeys. They are called howler monkeys. But it’s during our first at night, why they were called this way! And it’s terrifying!
These two recordings were taped at around 4:30am deep in the Calakmul’s jungle. You can also hear locusts singing around. OMG, we did not sleep much that night!
First dogs started to bark (there were two dogs in the camp)… Then we started hearing these loud howls. I thought there was a panthera or another large jungle creature approaching.
But the howler monkeys are just 60 cm high and actually so cute.
The howler monkey sounds are really frightening, when you experienced them live… And the worse is: If they start to scream, there is probably a larger predator around! Terrifying!
“If they start to scream, there is probably a larger predator around!” – This is misleading, not true: The howler monkey’s sound is a kind of territorial signal, to tell the other monkeys that they are there.