Muriqui in the USA

[vogelcommando]

In an old publication about mammal-imports into the USA from the period 1968 - 1972 I found a whole lot of intresting information about species and numbers imported into the USA during that period.
One of the most intrersting facts I found was that in said period no less then 39 Muriquis were brought to the USA ! In that period the Northern and Southern muriqui were thought to be subspecies from eachother and because the species-list in this publication doesn't mention the animals to subspecies-level I don't know which of the 2 species were imported but I guess it will have been Southern muriquis because the Northern species was already endangered at that time.
Althrough its not mentioned in the publication, most or all animals will have been imported by commercial dealers and could have been obtained by every person intrested in the animals but evenso I think most have been ended-up in some sort of zoological collection, however I wasn't able to find a single zoo in the US which mention to have kept Muriquis.
A single specimen could have ended-up in an unnoticed privat collection but 39 ???
Therefor my question: does anybody know which collection has kept Muriquis and howmany ?

 

[zoo_enthusiast]

This is a very interesting question. I just checked historical ZIMS records, and there are no miriqui specimens at all recorded there for the USA (the only non-Brazilian specimen in ZIMS is a male from Rhenen between 1971-1977). ZIMS also has a total of 11 specimens from Brazilian collections (both species) - mostly recent ones, with at least 6 still alive. I am away from home right now and don't have my Crandall "Mammals in Captivity" with me, but I seem to recall that Bronx had a single specimen in the 50s, but the species was unknown in the USA otherwise.

 

[Chlidonias]

It may have simply been the result of incorrect identification (e.g. they may have been a species of spider or woolly monkey which was misidentified by the importer). The records for the mammals imported into the USA for each year were compiled from the import declarations, using the names declared on the forms with an attempt made at identification based on the name. It is of note that in 1969 (the year in which 38 Muriqui were reported being imported) there was a total of 477 "unknown" mammals - that is, species for which the identification could not be determined by the census compilers based on the common and/or scientific name used on the import declarations. The total number of mammals imported in 1969 was reported as being 122, 991 - so 477 is a very small percentage of that, but it shows that the names on the import declarations are not necessarily to be relied upon.

Just for interest, in 1969 there were 2659 spider monkeys imported into the USA, and 3311 woolly monkeys.

 

[Tim May]

I am away from home right now and don't have my Crandall "Mammals in Captivity" with me, but I seem to recall that Bronx had a single specimen in the 50s, but the species was unknown in the USA otherwise.

According to Crandall's book (1964), Bronx Zoo received a female woolly spider monkey on 24th April 1959; this animal only lived for just over a year and died on 27th May 1960. Crandall states this animal "is presumed to have been the first to reach America alive".

 

[Chlidonias]

If anyone's interested in reading through the 1969 records, there is a pdf here: https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1539&context=usfwspubs

I think a number of the years are online in various forms if you Google them.

Some interesting figures from 1969 imports (although, as noted, these may not all be accurately identified):
171 Woolly Opossums
928 Mouse Opossums
817 Feathertail Gliders
4 Solenodons
498 Common Tree Shrews
4 Colugos
43 Bulldog Bats
5312 Douroucoulis
47,096 Squirrel Monkeys (these last two species were largely imported for labs)
4 Proboscis Monkeys
35 Silky Anteaters
93 Three-toed Sloths
23 Pangolins
19 Red-bellied Sculptor Squirrels
3 Black-eared Pigmy Squirrels
3 Rorquals
1 Narwhal
1184 Common Raccoons (!?)
5 Banded Linsangs
4 Meerkats (oh what an innocent time this was...)
2 Marbled Cats
2 Dibatags
24 Saiga

 

[amur leopard]

171 Woolly Opossums
928 Mouse Opossums
817 Feathertail Gliders
4 Solenodons
498 Common Tree Shrews
4 Colugos
43 Bulldog Bats
5312 Douroucoulis
47,096 Squirrel Monkeys (these last two species were largely imported for labs)
4 Proboscis Monkeys
35 Silky Anteaters
93 Three-toed Sloths
23 Pangolins
19 Red-bellied Sculptor Squirrels
3 Black-eared Pigmy Squirrels
3 Rorquals
1 Narwhal
1184 Common Raccoons (!?)
5 Banded Linsangs
4 Meerkats (oh what an innocent time this was...)
2 Marbled Cats
2 Dibatags
24 Saiga

What? Wow! 1969 must have been a zoochatter's paradise!
Marbled cats, dibatags, saiga, three-toed sloths, rorquals (!?), proboscis monkeys, silky anteaters, douroucoulis, pangolins, narwhal(s), linsangs...
That is incredible.
Is it me or has the variety in zoos decreased thoughout the last 50 years?

 

[Chlidonias]

I was just looking at the 1972 import records...

1234 Mouse Opossums were imported in that year.
550 Common Tree Shrews (these must have been imports for research labs, given the numbers)
83 Three-toed Sloths
1 Giant Armadillo and 14 Pichi Armadillos
33 Sunda Pangolins
7 Otter Civets
6 Banded Linsangs
5 Marbled Cats (the 1972 document gives the country of origin - one of the cats came from the Netherlands and the other 4 from Singapore)
1 Flat-headed Cat (from Singapore)

Just adding in this edit because they are some astounding numbers - in 1972 there were sixty Giant Anteaters imported into the USA and the document notes that the total for the 1968-1972 period was 369 Giant Anteaters imported! Also in 1972 there were 547 Tamanduas imported! Looking back at the 1969 imports, that year there were 38 Giant Anteaters and 452 Tamanduas declared as imports.

 

[drill]

I was just looking at the 1972 import records...

1234 Mouse Opossums were imported in that year.
550 Common Tree Shrews (these must have been imports for research labs, given the numbers)
83 Three-toed Sloths
1 Giant Armadillo and 14 Pichi Armadillos
33 Sunda Pangolins
7 Otter Civets
6 Banded Linsangs
5 Marbled Cats (the 1972 document gives the country of origin - one of the cats came from the Netherlands and the other 4 from Singapore)
1 Flat-headed Cat (from Singapore)

Just adding in this edit because they are some astounding numbers - in 1972 there were sixty Giant Anteaters imported into the USA and the document notes that the total for the 1968-1972 period was 369 Giant Anteaters imported! Also in 1972 there were 547 Tamanduas imported! Looking back at the 1969 imports, that year there were 38 Giant Anteaters and 452 Tamanduas declared as imports.

Southern tamanduas?

 

[AmbikaFan]

What? Wow! 1969 must have been a zoochatter's paradise!
Marbled cats, dibatags, saiga, three-toed sloths, rorquals (!?), proboscis monkeys, silky anteaters, douroucoulis, pangolins, narwhal(s), linsangs...
That is incredible.
Is it me or has the variety in zoos decreased thoughout the last 50 years?

Two huge factors:

1). The CITES Treaty went into effect in 1976, making import from the wild illegal except in special circumstances. This instantly brought these huge import numbers to a trickle, making it suddenly necessary to create our own self-sustaining populations. It took a while for this to sink in, so reproductive efforts in elephants, for instance, don't show significant result in the 80s. Both for this reason and loss of wild populations, there may well be a loss of variety, with the loss of these species only offset by zoos' expansions and holding more animals. At this time, zoos were veering away from being parks with picnic grounds and bandstands and dance halls, with this new space and perhaps added land increasing the number of species and animals held

2). While all of these incredible species may have been here in 1969, internet was decades away, and without the electronic access to all these records, even the most enthusiastic zoo nerds could, at best, visit zoos and/or sit in libraries trying to find data like this that was most likely only available in books, which take years to write and end up being out-of-date pretty quickly. Any Zoo Chat-like endeavor would have been a group to join that perhaps published a newsletter every month. Private conversations would have been by snail mail.

How different the world is from 50 years ago!

 

[Chlidonias]

Southern tamanduas?

Until the 1970s both tamandua species were treated as conspecific. Country-of-origin data show that they were being imported from throughout Central and South America, from the ranges of both species.


I have started a new thread where I am listing all the species from the 1968-1972 import lists, so that they can be accessed easily by anyone here. Of interest is that Marbled Cats and Banded Linsangs were imported in every year (except maybe 1970 which I can't find online).

Thread is here: Mammals Imported into the United States, 1968-1972

 

[Coelacanth18]

Is it me or has the variety in zoos decreased thoughout the last 50 years?

It likely has, and for good reason. That many species being imported was never sustainable, and the mortality rate was high for imported animals - both en route and after arrival. It's plausible that at least some of the species you listed were not around very long; conversely, many of the species still found in zoos today were the ones who adapted more quickly to captive conditions.

I would suspect (but can only guess) that most animals were not being imported by zoos, though. Primates make up ~90% of the numbers, and most of those were species common in medical research (rhesus macaque, squirrel and owl monkeys, baboons, chimps). I also wonder how many were imported to be sold as pets; that was primary reason that hundreds of thousands of New World parrots were imported during that time, for instance.

 

[MRJ]

Not entirely impressed with the assumption this was some sort of "golden age". Many of these animals would have lived short lives, never reproducing, and quickly replaced by the next import. It was an era when the wild was considered to be a limitless source of animals we could just plunder for our enjoyment.

 

[AmbikaFan]

"..when the wild was considered to be a limitless source of animals we could just plunder for our enjoyment.

This is essentially true for the entirety of the 20th century preceding 1976, and even some decades prior to that for circuses and menageries. You phrase it extremely well.