Rio de Janeiro, Brazil—

A new species of howler monkey has been discovered in the Amazon river basin, and has been named after President Donald Trump.

The discovered monkey, scientifically named Alouatta donaldea trumpis, is a blonde-haired monkey that spends most of its time in the Amazon canopy foraging for leaves, flowers, fruits, and nuts. The monkey has a complex social structure, with trumpis monkeys living in groups of six to fifteen.

The most startling similarity to President Trump, however, is the trumpis monkey’s reproductive behavior. Following copulation, the female trumpis monkey will pee on its male mate.

Biologists are unsure of the evolutionary reason for this post-coital behavior, but a few theories have been proposed. One theory suggests that pheromones in the female trumpis monkey’s urine helps keep away competitor females. Another theory suggests that the female trumpis monkey’s act of marking the male allows the female a time-out of sorts to rest after copulation without being bothered by other nearby males.

Another odd, Trump-like behavior is that Trumpis males spend much of their free time when not foraging for food grooming their daughters, but don’t seem to be very interested in showing the same attention to their sons, who are forced out of the community when they reach reproductive age and are capable of competing with their dads for sexual mates. Biologists have no guesses yet for the evolutionary benefit behind this behavior.

Age in general seems to play an important role in the dynamic trumpis social relationships. Trumpis males have been observed casting out older female monkeys, effectively exiling them from their social groups in order to preserve resources for younger females. Older male trumpis monkeys, meanwhile, have been seen mixing leaves and twigs with the fur on top of their heads in order to hide thinning patches, and are often aggressive with younger males.

The White House was asked for a comment on the eponymous taxon, and a spokeswoman said that the President had never peed on a monkey, and that any Russian tapes allegedly revealing such behavior are both fake and classified. We here at The Halfway Post believe that the White House communications department misunderstood our comment request.

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(Photo courtesy of Greg Goebel.)

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