Dart Monkey

"Throws a single dart at nearby bloons. Short range and low pierce but cheap."

- Bloons TD 6 Description

The Dart Monkey or Dart Tower is a tower in the Bloons TD series. It is one of the 5 original towers. It is named Dart Tower in BTD1 and Dart Monkey in subsequent games. The Dart Monkey appears in every BTD game as the first and cheapest tower unlocked.

The Dart Monkey is a small brown monkey with a single dart in its hand, capable of popping one bloon (two in BTD6) unless it is upgraded. This tower's darts are ineffective against Lead Bloons without upgrades or premiums. They also usually become outclassed by many other towers as you progress throughout the game, although at their highest level they can fulfill specific defensive niches.

Appearance
The Dart Monkey is a normal, brown monkey, with deep brown fur, and with tan fur on its face, ears, the front of its hands, the bottom of its feet, and its belly. On the top of his head are two tufts of hair, and on his face are two beady, black eyes (prior to BTD6), and a tiny nose and mouth.

In Bloons TD games, the Dart Monkeys are much thinner than their Bloons counterparts. In Bloons TD 5, if upgraded on any two upgrades for the first and second paths, they will receive a colored bandana (red or green). If it upgrades to Spike-o-pult, the monkey will lose its bandana (and will not obtain it again if they upgrade to Juggernaut) and receives a catapult with a spiked ball (the spiked ball becomes much larger if it is upgraded to Juggernaut). If it upgrades to Triple Darts, it will gain an elite black bandana with red in the middle, and a quiver of darts. If upgraded to Super Monkey Fan Club, it will gain a green cloak with a green visor, and hide the bandana under it, and will keep its quiver of darts. 

Game appearances
Dart Monkey makes up to 18 appearances:

Bloons
The Dart Monkey first made an appearance in the original Bloons game, the very first game of the entire Bloons series. He has since appeared in almost every Bloons game to date.

Bloons TD 6
Dart Monkey, once again making its initial appearance for all flagship games in the Bloons TD series, makes an appearance in BTD6. It is the first to be unlocked and are featured in a tutorial with Tutorial Monkey. Unlike previous games, Dart Monkey can pop up to 2 bloons with each dart by default.

Bloons Adventure Time TD
Dart Monkey makes an appearance as a cheap ally that pops up to one bloon at a moderate speed. It is an ally with the Common rarity.

Bloons Pop!
Dart Monkey makes a return as the first unlockable monkey in Bloons Pop!. It now throws triple darts that deal 3 damage per hit.

Bloons series
The Dart Monkey from Bloons throws darts to pop the various bloons in the levels. It is the icon for the BFB in BTD4, as well as for BTD5 with a cross through it. It has a long tail, two small dots for eyes, and tan fur on his face, body, hands, and feet. It throws a single dart that can pop an infinite amount of Bloons.

Bloons 2
The Dart Monkey throws darts which your arrow guides. When you pop the Monkey Ace Bloon, the Dart Monkey throws signal flags to guide the Monkey Ace.

Quotes
"Core to any Monkey City, the Dart Monkey excels at inexpensive early game track coverage. Powerful upgrades include: Triple Darts, Very Long Range, Juggernaut, Super Monkey Fan Club."

- BMC Flash tower summary of the Dart Monkey

"Shoots a single dart that pops a single bloon."

- BMC Steam tower description of the Dart Monkey

"Shoots a single dart. Can upgrade to piercing darts and long range darts."

- Bloons TD 1 Description "Shoot a single dart that pops a single bloon. A good, cheap tower suitable for the early rounds."

- Bloons TD 5 Description "Core to any Monkey City, the Dart monkey excels at inexpensive early game track coverage."

- Bloons Monkey City Description

Tower tips

 * When a tight cluster of bloons appears, it is best to use 2-3 upgrades, especially on curves, since it can easily pop away all of them due to its fast attack speed and high popping power.
 * But if players want to pop them in a row, 3-0 or 4-0 upgrades are the best, especially on a straight track.
 * Putting 2-3 Dart Monkeys close to each other can easily shred off the Ceramic layer off of a tightly grouped cluster of Ceramic Bloons regardless if it is normal, Regrowth or Camo.
 * The same goes for MOAB-class Bloons whose before 2-4 upgrades. Even before players use its ability, 10 or more of Dart Monkeys with 2-3 or 2-4 can 'drain' its life quickly and absolutely (20 or more for BFBs and 30 or more for Z.O.M.G.s. Recommended).
 * In BMC, if you want to use Dart Monkeys with 2-3 or 2-4 upgrades on D.D.T.s, best use 2-3 upgrade from Monkey Village.
 * Sometimes it's best not to have 0-1 and 0-2 upgrades if players want a 4-0 upgrade because it already has a high popping power.
 * Using the Super Monkey Fan Club Ability, and then upgrading the Dart Monkeys that turned into Super Monkeys to Juggernauts, then the "Super" Juggernauts will spit out the balls incredibly fast. This tactic doesn't work on mobile versions, however.
 * Instead, the Juggernaut just shoots like a normal Super Monkey, but with the occasionally spiked balls at the same fire rate as the normal Juggernaut. It also shoots from the middle, instead of the side.
 * Spamming the Super Monkey Fan Club Ability will cause the towers to throw darts even faster and do even more damage. So 10 Dart Monkeys all using their Super Monkey Fan Club Ability will be just as powerful as 100 Super Monkeys.
 * 10 Dart Monkeys at 2/4 can destroy 2 ZOMGs in BTD5, as long as they keep buffing each other to stay at super monkey status.
 * In BTD6, it is almost always more useful to spam several dart monkeys in a bad spot than upgrade to Quick Shots, this can be seen clearly on the expert track, Dark Castle.

Trivia

 * In BTD5, both Long Range Darts and Enhanced Eyesight increase the range by 25% of the base tower's range.
 * The Dart Monkey in Bloons TD series is based on the dart-throwing monkey in the Bloons games.
 * Dart Monkeys are right-handed, which means they will throw darts from the right side of the tower.
 * If a Dart Monkey with no third or fourth tier Path 2 upgrades is transformed by the Super Monkey Fan Club ability, by quickly upgrading these affected Dart Monkeys into the Juggernaut upgrade, it will become a hypersonic Juggernaut Monkey, throwing spiked balls extremely quickly. This speed can be enhanced with M.I.B. Call to Arms ability, or even the Overclock ability from the x/4 Monkey Engineer in Bloons TD 5 Mobile and Bloons TD 5 Deluxe.
 * The Juggernaut, Plasma Monkey Fan Club, and the Crossbow Master upgrades are the only non-premium upgrades that allow the Dart Monkey to pop Lead Bloons.
 * If one has a Tier 4 Specialty building on BTD5 Mobile or the Splodey Darts premium upgrade for the PC version, the only upgrade that is not able to pop lead bloons is the Spike-O-Pult upgrade.
 * A Dart Monkey does not change its appearance in BTD1, BTD2, or BTD3 no matter what it is upgraded to.
 * Path 1 upgrades focus on popping power, while Path 2 focuses on the darts.
 * Super Monkey Fan Club range stacks, albeit temporarily.
 * A Dart Monkey appears on the top of a B.F.B., being crossed with an anti sign.
 * However, this is not the case in BTD6.
 * The hotkey for Dart Monkeys Q will not select free dart monkeys if the player does not have enough money to buy one, regardless of whether the player has free Dart Monkeys (due to its Specialty Building in BTD5 and special item in BMC). The player must manually click the Dart Monkey's panel on the right.
 * Same with some free towers awarded from completing quests in BTD5, e.g. if you don't have enough money to buy Monkey Buccaneer and you have one free, the hotkey D will not trigger the free Monkey Buccaneer to be selected.
 * Interestingly enough, in Bloons Monkey City, the upgrade image at the Monkey Academy without any upgrades depicts him holding three darts in his left hand. This does not show in the upgrade image in a tile battle.
 * The Dart Monkey is one of the two towers whose Tier 4 upgrade completely changes its tower, the other being the Monkey Buccaneer.
 * Placing a 0/2, 3/x, or 4/x Dart Monkey at the top or bottom of a straight line with the targeting, at last, can pop more bloons.
 * When you upgrade a Dart Monkey, the arm moves farther to the right than normal. After the first attack, the arm returns to normal.
 * Super Monkey Fan Club ability will change the x/4 monkey itself too, it shoots hyperspeed triple darts.
 * This has been patched. If Super Monkey Fan Club is activated on Triple Dart Monkeys, they will only shoot ONE stream of hyper-speed razor-sharp darts (which means it could still pop 4 bloons per dart).
 * In Mobile, Triple Dart Monkeys and the Super Monkey Fan Club Monkey will shoot one stream of darts super fast, and triple darts at the same speed before the transformation.
 * It is possible to beat BTD1 using only Dart Monkeys since there is no Lead Bloons to pop. This was proven impossible in BTD2 and BTD3, as Lead Bloons could not be popped with any of the Dart Monkey's upgrades. In BTD4, it became possible again, although Splodey Darts had to be used since it is the only way to pop Lead Bloons using Dart Monkeys. With the Juggernaut upgrade popping leads in BTD5, it became possible to win a game using Dart Monkeys normally again.
 * In BMC, a 2/0 or 2/1 Dart Monkey has a headband blocking one eye, a red pupil in the other, and looks aggressive.
 * An entire screen of 2-0-2 Dart Monkeys can beat a Z.O.M.G. on Winter Park, but only on Easy Difficulty.
 * According to the BTD6 SMFC description, all Dart Monkeys are male.
 * In Hot Air Bloon Mobile, the first boss of the game is a hostile dart monkey holding onto 5 bloons.
 * Very similar enemies also appeared on the ground in one of the last worlds, throwing darts at the player.

Bloons games
Darts throwing sound in bloons 1 games Darts throwing sound in bloons 2 games