Pro: Pied Tamarin
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10 PRIMATE SPECIES YOU'VE PROBABLY NEVER HEARD OF
#9 PIED TAMARIN
Saguinus bicolor
YES!
Also known as the BRAZILIAN BARE-FACED TAMARIN or the PIED BARE-FACE TAMARIN
Common names are not officially defined. They are based on everyday conversational language and may differ by country, region, profession, community, or other factors. As a result, it is not unusual for a species to have more than one common name.
Scientific names are in Latin and they are written in italics. They are standardized and for everyone, no matter what language you may speak. They are bound by a formal naming system, called binominal nomenclature, that has strict rules. Scientific names prevent misidentification. Those names only change if a species, or its genus, is officially redesignated by experts.
Pied tamarins are endemic to a small geographic range in Brazil. Their habitat is almost exclusively within or nearby the city of Manaus, the capital of the state of Amazonas.
- Pied tamarins live in extended family groups of up to 15 individuals
- Each group is dominated by a reproductively active female whose pheromones and behavior repress sexual reproduction in the more submissive females in her troop
- Family bonds are strong
- Although their geographic range is small—or perhaps because of it—they are very territorial
Pied tamarin populations are decreasing. They exist only in small, highly degraded forest patches around and within the expanding port city of Manaus, Brazil. Their list of threats include residential and commercial development, agriculture (livestock farming & ranching), transportation and service corridors (roads & railroads), biological resource use (logging & wood harvesting), and invasive and other problematic species, genes, and diseases.
- Although small and cute, pied tamarins are wild animals. Their diet and environmental needs cannot be adequately met or replicated in human living conditions.
- To become pets, baby primates are stolen from their mothers. As a result, they do not develop normally emotionally.
- When taken from the wild, their mothers are killed to capture the baby.
- Primates are never domesticated. They always remain wild.
- Caged primates are very unhappy and frustrated. They are likely to resist confinement. They are quick and cause damaging bites and scratches. Some die as a result of their captivity.
- Many locations have strict regulations that prohibit trading in or keeping primates and endangered species are pets.
- Pied tamarins belong with other pied tamarins in Brazil’s Amazon rainforest. They and their habitats must be protected, not exploited.
Visit the PIED TAMARIN Primate Species Profile