Monkey leaping from tree to tree

The howler monkey in this photo has leapt from the tree on the left, but his body is already heading down and the branches of the tree across the road to the right are not within his grasp.  The problem is that the ends of the branches on the left were so small that they did not provide very much forward momentum when the monkey jumped.  Instead, the monkey's jump pushed the branches back more than propelling the monkey forward.

You can imagine Julie's and my shock when the monkey came flying out of the tree and landed in the road just a few feet from us.  We were also horrified because the monkey did not land softly like a cat.  We could hear his chest thump from the impact onto the road.

The monkey walked into the forest on the right, rather slowly, then crawled up into the trees and seemed to be OK.  Julie and I then backed away to give the monkeys more space, and another monkey then tried to make the same jump.  He also fell to the street.   At that point, there was yet another problem.  What would the mother and baby do?  The answer, of course, will be shown tomorrow.

We are showing photos of Tanzania this week on our Viva la Voyage travel photo site, including a photo of a different kind of monkey than this.