Guamo machete and Mango

Strange to relate, Cañaote is very late with Mango fruiting this year. Whilst some of the trees have an abundance of fruit, ready to pick and eat, many are covered with young immature mangoes. Nearby villages have had ripe fruit for some time and are approaching the end of their season. Mango along with Guamo are natural freely occurring, foods for all our species of monkey. The forest here has a wealth of both. Where possible we introduce local naturally growing foods and fruits to our monkeys. The kind of diet that they would have if they were free to roam. One of the principal tasks of our helper is a dawn walk through the forest to collect breakfast for the monkeys and me too.
Our picture today is Totto, enjoying a sheath of Guamo.

N.B Guamo grows spontaneously in the central area of the north of Venezuela where it is known locally as ‘hairy Guamo’ because of the peculiar characteristic of the fruits which are covered by a rigid velvet ferrugineo (hair-guama). It has large fruits that look like hanging machetes, this is where their common name comes from.