Baby owl monkey in Tampa Bay
FOX 13 photojournalist Jason Wright displays baby owl money at Tampa Bay’s Giraffe Ranch.
DADE CITY, Fla. – If you own a ranch with multiple species of animals, the natural progression of those animals may occur.
Giraffe Farm in Tampa Bay has a maternity ward for baby animals.
Rex Salisbury, owner and operator of Giraffe Farm, explains some of the animals on display there.
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“We have a baby owl monkey here at Giraffe Farm, the only nocturnal monkey in the world,” Salisbury said.
The owl monkey is a type of monkey that lives in Central and South America. Its features are similar to those of a lemur, except for shorter ears, much larger eyes, and longer fingers.
“They have big catcher’s mitt-like hands, and they use these huge fingers to grab moths and then eat the moths,” Salisbury said.
A baby owl monkey lives at a giraffe farm in Tampa Bay.
Owl monkeys also share some unique characteristics with humans that have contributed to the development of much-needed medicines to save lives.
“They get malaria just like humans,” Salisbury said. “So they were used as research animals to develop vaccines.”
“They developed a malaria vaccine that is now being used in Africa,” Professor Salisbury said.
A baby owl monkey is fed at the Giraffe Farm in Dade City.
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The Johns Hopkins University Malaria Research Institute conducted the study and the resulting vaccine recipients. The vaccine is currently being used in Zambia and other sub-Saharan regions affected by malaria.
Visit the Giraffe Ranch, located at 38650 Mickler Rd in Dade City, to see baby owl monkeys and other primates firsthand.
For more information about Dade City Giraffe Farm, please visit our website here.
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