Here we present a theory on the origin of allopatric primate species that follows - at least in Neotropical primates - the irreversible trend to albinotic skin and coat color, called "metachromic bleaching." It explains why primates constitute such an exceptionally diverse, species-rich, and colorful Order in the Class Mammalia. The theory is in tune with the principle of evolutionary change in tegumentary colors called "metachromism," a hypothesis propounded by the late Philip Hershkovitz. Metachromism holds the evolutionary change in hair, skin, and eye melanins following an orderly and irreversible sequence that ends in loss of pigment becoming albinotic, cream to silvery or white. In about all extant sociable Neotropical monkeys we identified an irreversible trend according to which metachromic varieties depart from the saturated eumelanin (agouti, black or blackish brown) archetypic form and then speciate into allopatric taxa following the trend to albinotic skin and coat color. Speciation goes either along the eumelanin pathway (from gray to silvery to cream to white), or the pheomelanin pathway (from red to orange to yellow to white), or a combination of the two. The theory represents a new evolutionary concept that seems to act indefinitely in a non-adaptive way in the population dynamics of male-hierarchic societies of all sociable primates that act territorial. We have tested the theory in all 17 extant Neotropical monkey genera. Our theory suggests the trend to allopatry among metachromic varieties in a social group or population to be the principal behavioral factor that empowers metachromic processes in sociable Neotropical monkeys. It may well represent the principal mechanism behind speciation, radiation, niche separation, and phylogeography in all sociable primates that hold male-defended territories. We urge field biologists who study primate distributions, demography and phylogeography in the Old World to take our theory to the test in the equally colorful Catarrhini.

This is the first complete pictorial field guide to all the known Neotropical Primates/Monkeys of the New World. All taxa are depicted in full color by illustrators Stephen Nash and Piero Gozzaglio according to their phylogeography. Moreover, splash pages containing many, often unique photographs taken by the author of both monkeys in the wild or kept free-ranging in several rehabs/halfway houses run by him over more than 16 years in the rain forest at about 30 km from the city of Manaus-AM, Brazil. Included are also a number of recently identified but not yet published taxa new to science, among which several of the largest-sized Amazonian monkeys (i.e., Ateles, Lagothrix, Chiropotes, Cacajao).

Volume I of "An Illustrated Guide to the Wild Fruits from the Amazon" depicts the fruits of all known Guianan plants covering about 100 families, 546 genera, and over 2,000 species. Moreover, the fruits of important edible-fruit producing families that occur in the larger Brazilian Amazon are included. Furthermore, besides the fruits of all Amazonian trees of the families Lecythidaceae and Myristicaceae, all fruits that have been cultivated for food and/or spread across the Amazon over the past 11,000 years by now extinct Neolithic Amerindian hunter-gatherers and/or "terra preta" anthrosol farming peoples, are depicted in color. The catalogue is restricted to woody plants, i.e. trees and shrubs reaching over 1.5 m in height when full grown, lianas, vines, (hemi)-epiphytic climbing shrubs, and (sub)-ligneous epiphytes. Among the Chlamydospermae, only the family Gnetaceae is treated. The remaining 98 families belong to the Angiospermae. Among the Monocotyledoneae, the families Araceae, Musaceae/Strelitziaceae, Liliaceae, and Arecaceae are included. The remaining 94 families belong to the Dicotyledoneae. Volume II (in prep.) will treat over 100 plant families in alphabetical order. Each family is headed by a short family description based mainly on the more practicable field characters of leaves, inflorescences, flowers, and fruits. The section Notes includes remarks on habit, secretory systems, and seed dispersal - only when one may generalize on family level. Following a family description, each genus within the family is numbered and mentioned together with the author's name. A genus description is given when more than one species within the genus are described. Each genus is followed by the species in alphabetical order and sub-numbered. This facilitates a quick determination of both the number of genera treated within a certain family and the number of species treated within a certain genus. The species name is followed by the author's name according to up-to-date taxonomic literature. When known to the author, vernacular names used by the most prominent sections of the population, such as Aruak-Amerindian (A), Caraib-Amerindian (C), Surinamese Dutch (SD), Spanish (Sp.), English (E), Brazilian Portuguese (B), Sranan-tongo or Surinamese (S), and Bushland-Creole, Quilombola or Paramaccan (P), have been included. When a fruit species is depicted in Volume I, plate and figure numbers are given. Plates are numbered 1-208; figures are numbered within each plate. The species descriptions as presented in Volume II usually include four sections, the first word of each section being printed in italics. The first section gives simple leaf characters as far as they are practicable in the field. The second section describes main characters of inflorescence, infructescence, (fruiting) calyx, and/or pedicel. The third section describes external and internal characters of fruit and seed(s). The fourth section, "Notes," gives various remarks that may be useful in the field, such as plant habit, presence of secretory systems, bark features, seed dispersal strategy, phenology, occurrence, habitat and soil type, and geographical distribution within the Guianas and the larger Amazonian region. In Vol. I, I tried to include drawings of as many fruits as possible. In case of great interspecific resemblance, only one of the fruits has been depicted. Depending on the available material, fruits and seeds are drawn from different angles, cross and/or longitudinal sections, showing the morphological properties that are most important for visual identification. This Amazonian fruit catalogue includes too many species to make a usable key down to genus or species level. However, here I have included a synoptical key to the one-hundred plant families treated. In order to facilitate direct identification of the fruits, figures are drawn on a 1:1 scale. Large fruits are reduced to about half their natural size.