Monkey Coloring Pages

There are hundreds of kinds of monkey, and they look far less alike than people expect. These monkey coloring pages start with the real ones, each drawn so you can tell it apart, and then hand the page over to the cheeky cartoon monkey everyone knows.

The real monkeys first. A capuchin hangs by its curled tail from a vine and reaches for a mango. A troop of snow monkeys soaks in a steaming hot spring among snowy pines. A mandrill fills the page with its long ridged muzzle and thick mane. A howler monkey calls from a branch at sunrise. A proboscis monkey, with its famous long nose, stands in the water among mangrove roots. A golden snub-nosed monkey sits in its thick coat on a snowy bough, an emperor tamarin clings to a trunk with its long white moustache, a squirrel monkey sips dew from a leaf, and two gibbons swing from a branch on their long arms. A baby rides on its mother's back across a rope bridge, and a family of three sits in a frame of hibiscus and vines.

Then the playful ones. A chibi monkey hugs a banana almost as big as itself, another peels one on a river dock, and one picks coconuts at the top of a palm while a parrot watches. They catch snowflakes in a scarf, walk in the rain under an umbrella, splash in a puddle in a raincoat, balance on a clothesline between stilt huts, paddle a log canoe, ride a bicycle and float over the Moon as an astronaut. A monkey chef stirs a pot of fruit stew, one sleeps in a hammock of vines, one studies a beetle through a magnifying glass, one meditates by a waterfall, one gathers chestnuts in autumn and one peeks out of a hollow tree. A baby monkey reaches for a butterfly, another holds a bouquet of tropical flowers, and a whole troop in party hats gathers around a tower of fruit for a birthday. For patient hands, a mandala of monkey faces and a repeating pattern of monkeys, bananas and palm leaves.

Monkey or ape?

Look for the tail. Almost all monkeys have one; apes never do. Apes are the gorillas, chimpanzees, orangutans, bonobos and gibbons, and they are usually bigger, with longer arms and no tail at all. That makes the gibbons on these pages the odd ones out: they are small apes, not monkeys, and they swing arm over arm through the trees faster than any monkey can climb.

The tail tells you something else. Only monkeys from Central and South America, like the capuchin, the howler and the spider monkey, have a tail strong enough to grip a branch like a fifth hand, which is exactly what the capuchin on the first page is doing. The monkeys of Africa and Asia, like the snow monkeys and the mandrill, use their tails for balance but cannot hang from them.

Coloring each monkey its real colors

Real monkeys give you more colors to choose from than you might think:

• The mandrill has the most colorful face of any mammal: a bright red stripe down the nose, blue ridges on each side and a golden beard. It is the page to reach for the brightest pencils.
• Snow monkeys are soft gray-brown with bright pink-red faces, which stand out beautifully against white snow.
• The golden snub-nosed monkey has, as its name says, golden orange fur and a pale blue face.
• The proboscis monkey is reddish brown on top and pale gray below, with a pinkish nose.
• The emperor tamarin is dark gray with a white moustache. It was named, as a joke, after a German emperor who wore one just like it.
• The squirrel monkey has a gray back, bright yellow-orange arms and legs and a white mask around its eyes.

The cartoon monkeys are easier: a warm brown body, a tan face, tan inner ears and a tan belly. That single contrast is what makes a cartoon monkey read as a monkey.

Easy monkeys and busy jungles

Most of these pages come with a setting: jungle leaves, a river dock, a hot spring, a party. A few keep the monkey big and the background light, and those are the ones for a child of four or five; surprisingly, the mandrill's face is among them, because its bold stripes are large shapes. Quick to color, above the grid, starts with:

• Monkey with an umbrella in the rain
• Chibi monkey hugging a banana
• Mandrill portrait

The densest pages are the jungle scenes and the pattern pages, where every leaf, vine and banana needs its own color. Lots of detail opens on:

• Monkey family in a hibiscus frame
• Monkey birthday party with a fruit tower
• Monkeys, bananas and palm leaves pattern

Where in the world is each monkey?

The real monkeys on these pages come from very different places, which turns the set into a small geography lesson. Color the snow monkeys and pin them on Japan, the golden snub-nosed monkey on the mountains of China, the proboscis monkey on the island of Borneo, the mandrill on the forests of central Africa, and the capuchin, howler, squirrel monkey and tamarin on South and Central America. The gibbons go on Southeast Asia. A world map with colored monkeys stuck to it is a better way to remember where they live than any list.

And a fact for the classroom: a howler monkey's call is one of the loudest sounds made by any land animal, and it can carry for miles through the forest. The howler on the sunrise page is doing exactly that.

A monkey party

For a jungle or monkey party, the birthday page with the tower of fruit belongs to the birthday child, and the cheeky cartoon monkeys suit the youngest guests. The monkey is also one of the twelve animals of the Chinese zodiac, so children born in a Year of the Monkey have a page of their own sign here.

Printing a troop

Each page is a free PDF laid out on A4 at 300 dpi. On A4, print at full size; on US Letter, "fit to page" shrinks it by about six percent without losing a tail. The printing guide explains. Tap Add to pack under several pages to print them together. The zoo coloring pages have more animals from the same forests, the tiger coloring pages the monkeys' big striped neighbor, and the koala coloring pages another tree climber.