Golden Lion Tamarin
Golden Lion Tamarin
Image source: http://www.flickr.com/photos/jkransen/2954024509/
1. Golden lion tamarins are native to southeastern Brazil near Rio de Janeiro. Tropical swamp forests in coastal lowlands. 2. This small monkey takes its name from the vivid, gold-orange lion-like mane around the head. Its body and tail are also reddish while its face is dark and hairless. Large round eyes and a snub nose.
3. Golden lion tamarins are six to ten inches (15-24 cm) long with a ten to 16 inch tail (25-40 cm). They weigh 17-24 ounces (500-700 g).
4. Have claws, rather than flattened fingernails.
5. Golden Lion Tamarins are omnivores. They eat fruit, flowers, nectar , plant gum, small insects, frogs and lizards.
6. Predators find it hard to track Golden Lion Tamarins because they move around so much. Tamarins never nest in the same spot for more than one night.
7. Golden lion tamarins are social animals living in family groups of up to 15 members. Groups usually consist of one breeding adult of each sex, their offspring and sometimes other relatives.
8. Tamarins are sexually mature at about 18 months. Mating occurs once a year and females give birth during the rainy season when fruit is most abundant. Pregnancy usually results in twins born after a gestation of about 128 days. Females nurse the babies but infant care is cooperative with the fathers and other group members caring for the infants when they are not nursing.
9. Keep Out!
Golden lion tamarins establish and defend a territory as large as 100 acres against other tamarins. Territories are marked using scent glands located in the sternal and genital areas. Vocalizations are also used to warn intruders to stay away. Actual fighting between rival groups does not occur.
10. Treetop Living
Golden lion tamarins are active in the upper canopy of the forest during the day. They forage for food using their long, slender fingers to probe in small crevices, under bark and inside plants. At night they retreat to nest holes in trees and sleep until after sunrise. The adults are the first to venture out in the morning and the last group members to enter the nest holes at night. The tree holes also provide protection from predators and relief from the mid-day heat.
11. Talk to Me
Tamarins use a variety of vocalizations to communicate with group members. High-pitched calls and squeaks are used to warn intruders away and to warn group members if predators threaten.
12. Different calls are used for predators in the air (like hawks) and predators on the ground or in the trees. Tamarins also communicate through facial expressions and scent marking.
14. By 1971, golden lion tamarins were critically endangered with only 200 left in the wild.
15. Golden lion tamarins groom themselves like other primates. Mainly males groom females.
16. Juveniles play with each other a lot; they chase and wrestle with each other.
17. Golden Lion Tamarins emit a whine when they’re alarmed. They also have a variety of other calls. Listen for screeches when they play and clucks when they’re foraging.
18. The golden lion tamarin lives in extended family groups high up in the tree tops. During the hottest part of the day the family usually hides in dense foliage, out of the direct sunlight.
19. The tamarins spend much of the day playing with each other in a quarrelsome fashion, jumping easily through the trees, using their very long and partly webbed fingers to grip the branches.
20. Grooming is an important daily activity and helps to bond the family together. They even pick and clean each others teeth.
21. Tamarins within a family are very sociable but they are extremely aggressive to intruders. If excited or frightened a tamarin raises its mane, bares its teeth and calls out with high-pitched shrieks.
22. Adults of the same sex sometimes fight to the death. When not playing or resting, the tamarin searches for food. It is an omnivore, eating both meat and plant material, collecting it from tree tops
23. Golden lion tamarins breed at any time of the year and keep to one partner. The gestation period is 5 months and usually twins are born.
24. The male, as is usual in marmosets and tamarins, helps with the birth and takes the babies from the female and washes them.
25. The new-born baby looks just like its parents but with shorter hair. It clings to its parent's body tightly with its hands and feet.
26. The male is an excellent father, carrying his babies around for most of the time, handing one over to its mother every 2 to 3 hours; she suckles it for about 15 minutes and then hands it back to the male.
27. The attractive appearance of the golden lion tamarin has been its downfall in the past. The species has been known to Europeans since they first explored Brazil and it has been popular as a pet since the seventeenth century. European ladies used to keep one, as was the fashion, in their muffs.
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