“Our” black howler monkey is still puzzling.

The newborn, for whom the FAZ sponsored an animal in the Frankfurt Zoo two weeks ago for the next ten years, is still as affectionate as it should be for a baby monkey.

Accordingly, there are still no photos that show the offspring of Lawa and Santiago in all their glory.

Camouflaged in the same fur as its mother, eyes and heads as well as arms and legs can only be guessed when the little one is hanging on the mother's stomach.

Daniel Meuren

Editor in the Rhein-Main-Zeitung.

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    Since the health of the newcomer to the zoo, who was born on May 30th, is in excellent shape, the sex of the monkey remains uncertain.

    The zookeepers and veterinarians allow the babies the greatest possible rest at the beginning of their lives, in order to let the bond, especially with the mother, grow as naturally as possible.

    Only after a few months would a discoloration of the coat indicate that it is a male offspring.

    Creative suggestions

    This only has a limited influence on the choice of name (via our voting tool further down in the text): Most of the suggestions from our readers were gender-neutral in accordance with the zeitgeist of gendering - and even without asterisks or pronouns they sounded very euphonic. With the name proposal Nevio / Novia by the Zinnecker family, which means something like the new one, we meanwhile offer both options, the final name would then be chosen when the gender became known.

    The editorial preselection of the six names offered for choice had to meet two criteria that the zoo had specified as a condition: The name must match the geographic origin of the animal and must not be too human.

    Accordingly, with a heavy heart, beautiful and also very creative word games with the letters F, A and Z such as Fazke, Fazinho or Fazimono had to be sorted out from the well over 100 submitted names by our readers.

    Even suggestions that other publishing houses recognized that, from the readers' point of view, could be a good match for a howler monkey were left out.

    With atlas and travel experience

    Many apparently approached the search for a name via the atlas or their own travel experience: Tamara Melzer suggested Coari, a Brazilian community in the state of Amazonas that is home to howler monkeys. Heiko Mußmann promotes Tambo as the abbreviation of Tambopata. This is the name of a river, a national park of the same name and a province in the Peruvian rainforest, where you can also see howler monkeys in their natural environment together with park guides. The Baião proposed by the Gravendyck family is a dance and rhythm from Brazil.

    Guariba, suggested by Birte Hamdorf, is a popular name for the monkey species.

    Kamui is, after all, borrowed from the language of the Baniwa, an indigenous tribe with around 15,000 members who live in the rainforest in the border area between Brazil, Colombia and Venezuela.

    Kamui means sun.

    Noah Kröger advertises his name with the fact that it has a fundamentally positive connotation.

    The “polling station” will be open until Tuesday, July 13th, at 4 pm.

    The result will then be officially announced via our channels after all votes have been counted.

    The winner's name should meet a certain quorum, otherwise we reserve the right to a runoff.

    The name, which in the end garnered the most votes, will hopefully not only bring luck to our black howler monkey: We are also inviting the namesake and company to accompany the FAZ delegation to the zoo for Animal Patent Day on September 10th: Then we can look together for Baião, Coari, Guariba, Kamui, Nevio, Novia or Tambo.