TARSIERS
TARSIERS
Tarsiers belong to the suborder Haplorrhini, the “dry nosed” primates, along with monkeys and apes. Haplorrhines are considered to be less primitive than the strepsirrhine “wet-nosed” primates. Nonetheless, tarsiers continue to be, somewhat controversially, categorized as prosimians. The tarsier family, Tarsiidae, includes three genera, at least fourteen species, and seven subspecies.
PHILIPPINE TARSIERS
Genus: Carlito
Carlito syrichta
CONSERVATION STATUS: NEAR THREATENED
Philippine tarsiers are native to the southeastern Philippines. While tarsiers once ranged across Europe, northern Africa, Asia, and North America, they all now live in the lush islands of Southeast Asia. Twenty thousand years ago, the Philippine islands—all 7,107 of them—were linked together as larger islands because the…
WESTERN TARSIERS
Genus: Cephalopachus
Cephalopachus bancanus
CONSERVATION STATUS: VULNERABLE
Horsfield’s tarsier, also known as the western tarsier, is native to Southeast Asia occurring in Borneo (Asia’s largest island and the third-largest island in the world), Indonesia, and Malaysia. in Borneo, this tiny, bizarre-looking primate is found in the sovereign state of Brunei, located on Borneo’s north coast; and within Borneo’s…
EASTERN TARSIERS
Genus: Tarsius
Tarsius pumilus
CONSERVATION STATUS: ENDANGERED
The Indonesian island of Sulawesi is home to the pygmy tarsier, also known as the mountain tarsier, the lesser spectral tarsier, or the Sulawesi Mountain Tarsier. Having eluded detection by scientists for about 80 years, pygmy tarsiers were thought to have gone extinct sometime during the early 20th century. Then…
Tarsius tumpara
CONSERVATION STATUS: CRITICALLY ENDANGERED
The tiny volcanic island of Siau, in Indonesia’s North Sulawesi province, is home to this tiny, enigmatic primate. Siau Island tarsiers are found nowhere else in the world. (Some scientists speculate that these Critically Endangered primates may also inhabit some of the smaller islands in close proximity to Siau Island…
Tarsius tarsier
CONSERVATION STATUS: VULNERABLE
The spectral tarsier, also known as the Sulawesi tarsier and the eastern tarsier, and formerly known scientifically as Tarsius spectrum, is taxonomically distinct from the Philippine tarsier (Carlito syrichta) and is endemic to Sulawesi and other small surrounding islands in Indonesia. Sulawesi sits east of Borneo, west of the Maluku…