COLOBUS

(Yunanca köken — orijinale bakınız.) A genus of long-tailed Quadrumanes, or monkeys; so called, because the fore hands are deficient in, and, as it were, mutilated of, a thumb. In this respect the Colobi, which are exclusively limited to the African continent, resemble the spider-monkeys (Ateles) of South America: but they have not a prehensile tail to compensate for the imperfection of the hands; their long caudal appendage is, on the contrary, terminated by a tuft of hairs. The Colobi differ also from the Ateles in having five molar teeth instead of six on each side of each jaw, and in having cheek-pouches. [s. 260]