Based on ethnographic fieldwork with a team of primatologists working in a small area of Brazilian Atlantic Forest, this paper engages with some of the classical issues in the anthropology of science, especially the ethnological interest in the relations between humans and non-humans and the cosmological dynamics that shape this collective. The paper focuses on how the image and agency of the primates is constructed (woolly-spider monkeys known as ‘muriquis' or ‘mono-carvoeiros') and also analyzes their appropriation by primatological discourse-culture. As well as tracing the relations forming this collective of humans and non-humans, the text maps the variations composed of images, behaviours and transpecific performances.
Anthropology of Science; Controversies; Primatology; Woolly spider monkey; Transpecific narratives