No monkey business for vets as Smokey aces scan

A vet practice in Wales has enjoyed the rare chance to give a spider monkey a CT scan.

Welsh Mountain Zoo resident Smokey, believed to be the only red-faced spider monkey in the UK, was taken to Mochdre Vets in Colwyn Bay after he began vomiting.

Having suddenly lost a female spider monkey, Aranya, to a perforated ulcer several months previously, the zoo was concerned about Smokey’s condition and reached out to the neighbouring practice.

Led by deputy head nurse Robi McAffrey while head nurse Jess Nettleton monitored Smokey’s anaesthetic, the CT scan ruled out tumours, foreign bodies and ulcers as the team determined he had gastroenteritis.

While Smokey’s condition was described as “severe”, the vets were able to treat him medically without the need for surgery, which pleased practice owner and lead vet Sarah Heywood.

‘Complex’

She said: “Operations in spider monkeys are always complex, and in Smokey’s case, there was an added concern: during the COVID lockdowns, he became stressed without visitors and pulled fur from his arm, so having a healing wound could have been a real temptation for him.”

The procedure was said to cause “minimal stress” and the monkey was back in his pen and eating again the same afternoon.

He has since made a full recovery and is back on display.

Welsh Mountain Zoo’s commercial director, Michaella Brannan, told the BBC: “Smokey is much better and is back to his normal self, interacting with visitors.

“He’s now eating a normal diet and swinging effortlessly around his enclosure in the way that we’d expect him to.”

‘Privilege’

Dr Heywood has “had the privilege to be involved with many exciting things” during her career helping to treat exotic animals including lemurs, penguins, flamingos, snow leopards and tigers.

She highlighted penguins as being among the most challenging due to their “very peculiar” anatomy and lack of available material.

On Smokey, she added: “We were very pleased to be involved in his care.

“We believe Smokey may now be the only red-faced spider monkey in the UK, which makes us fairly confident in saying we are among the very few teams to have ever performed a CT scan on a spider monkey.”

Red-faced spider monkeys are native to the rainforests of South America; they are classed as vulnerable on the list of threatened species due to hunting and habitat loss.