What is your favourite New world primate species ?

Gil said:
That's also a though question. But if I had to keep only one species I would go with the golden-headed lion tamarin (Leontopithecus chrysomelas). In my opinion they are the most beautiful species of tamarin with the golden-rumped lion tamarin (Leontopithecus chrysopygus) that I dream to see in a zoo that I also dream to visit, Jersey Zoo. These little guys have an incredible temper. They are always moving and playing, I never get bored watching them.

I hope for you that you will have the opportunity to see the woolly monkey in the wild, it must be incredible !!
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Yes the GHLT is quite a character and they do tend to be a bit more aggressive and behaviourally dominant in their temperament than the other lion tamarin species.

The BLT is typically much more highly strung and sensitive / shyer than the other two lion tamarins that have been kept in captivity (the fourth and most poorly known species the superagui lion tamarin has never been kept ) and has posed the biggest challenge to zoos in terms of husbandry.

For me the BLT is a fascinating species and one that I'm very fond of too and I've been extremely lucky to have seen these in both the wild and in captivity.

Hope you get to see this species at Jersey as they have a very significant group kept there.
 
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Onychorhynchus coronatus said:
Yes the GHLT is quite a character and they do tend to be a bit more aggressive and behaviourally dominant in their temperament than the other lion tamarin species.

The BLT is typically much more highly strung and sensitive / shyer than the other two lion tamarins that have been kept in captivity (the fourth and most poorly known species the superagui lion tamarin has never been kept ) and has posed the biggest challenge to zoos in terms of husbandry.

For me the BLT is a fascinating species and one that I'm very fond of too and I've been extremely lucky to have seen these in both the wild and in captivity.

Hope you get to see this species at Jersey as they have a very significant group kept there.
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Thanks for commenting @Galapagos Penguin!

Why do you like the Geoffroy's most of all ?
 
Onychorhynchus coronatus said:
Fascinating about the squirrel monkeys as the Central American species is really quite threatened.

I'm not surprised about the capuchins lol they are such intelligent primates and they quickly become habituated to people and food theft.
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I only saw one Squirrel monkey on a while driving in the city. I was trying to find my hotel while in some residential area I just found one on a fence. Real shame that their disappearing, they are very cute and the forests wouldn’t be the same without them.
 
Westcoastperson said:
I only saw one Squirrel monkey on a while driving in the city. I was trying to find my hotel while in some residential area I just found one on a fence. Real shame that their disappearing, they are very cute and the forests wouldn’t be the same without them.
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Definitely a terrible shame about their decline and in the context of zoos I find it quite strange that so many zoos keep the South American species yet I can't think of any that keep the Central American.
 
It's really hard to pick one species so I'll name three.

The first one is the emperor tamarin. One of the 6 Callitrichinae that can be seen from my 2 home zoos, I always like this species because of the moustache. Marmoset/tamarin are playful animals and are generally interesting to watch, but emperor tamarin takes the cake with it's unique appearance. A close second to golden headed lion tamarin.

The second one is the red backed bearded saki. A species which i have seen 1 to 2 times in zoos, I really like this species when I first saw them on TV. The hair and the beard looks unique, together with a thick tail too.

The third one is the red howler. The bright red/orange coloration together with the howler noise just makes me love them. I haven't seen them yet (miss them in singapore river safari), and it remains one of the species I would like to see in the wild or in captivity.
 
aardvark250 said:
It's really hard to pick one species so I'll name three.

The first one is the emperor tamarin. One of the 6 Callitrichinae that can be seen from my 2 home zoos, I always like this species because of the moustache. Marmoset/tamarin are playful animals and are generally interesting to watch, but emperor tamarin takes the cake with it's unique appearance. A close second to golden headed lion tamarin.

The second one is the red backed bearded saki. A species which i have seen 1 to 2 times in zoos, I really like this species when I first saw them on TV. The hair and the beard looks unique, together with a thick tail too.

The third one is the red howler. The bright red/orange coloration together with the howler noise just makes me love them. I haven't seen them yet (miss them in singapore river safari), and it remains one of the species I would like to see in the wild or in captivity.
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Thanks for sharing @aardvark250 !

The appearance of the emperor tamarin is definitely unique and they are quite like the cotton top in the sense of being quite fiery in temperament and their reproductive behaviour too is curious (these are polyandrous).

Red backed bearded sakis also an interesting species in terms of appearance (apparently "satanic" according to the Victorian who gave the species it's scientific name) behaviour. A close colleague of mine studied this species in the wild.

Red howlers like all howlers are really charismatic animals I agree.
 
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Onychorhynchus coronatus said:
Definitely a terrible shame about their decline and in the context of zoos I find it quite strange that so many zoos keep the South American species yet I can't think of any that keep the Central American.
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So some research says that even though Central American squirrel monkeys have very different social patterns from South American squirrel monkeys there are no Central American animals in captivity. North America would do good with some Central American Squirrel Monkeys considering the amount Central American species held in North America.
 
Westcoastperson said:
So some research says that even though Central American squirrel monkeys have very different social patterns from South American squirrel monkeys there are no Central American animals in captivity. North America would do good with some Central American Squirrel Monkeys considering the amount Central American species held in North America.
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Yes I find it odd that there are none in zoos either in Central or North America or Europe.

Same with the black headed squirrel monkey which is also endangered.

If anything the Central American and black headed would benefit from ex-situ whereas the Bolivian species is frankly of no Conservation value whatsoever yet widely held.
 
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Onychorhynchus coronatus said:
Yes I find it odd that there are none in zoos either in Central or North America or Europe.

Same with the black headed squirrel monkey which is also endangered.

If anything the Central American and black headed would benefit from ex-situ whereas the Bolivian species is frankly of no Conservation value whatsoever yet widely held.
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Well I can somewhat understand why zoos only keep this one species. So this article at the economic importance section states half of all squirrel monkeys were taken from the wild for laboratory use and for the zoological and private trade. ADW: Saimiri oerstedii: INFORMATION. I am going to assume this was in reference to the South American species which is difficult by itself The Formation of a Captive Squirrel Monkey Group. So both need large social groups of strictly family members. Central American species actually need larger groups but they are less territorial. Because they need such specialized groups of over 20 I think zoos just find it easier to keep the animals they already have that have smaller groups. Also we still don’t know as much about Central American species compared to South American so overall it’s just easier to keep the current animals. And keeping two different SSPs of such difficult animals would be difficult, and it would take a while to phase out all of the current squirrel monkeys. But it could be attempted by San Diego and Los Angeles. They’re closest to Costa Rica and they have great track records with monkeys so they would be the ones to go to, Maybe Miami and Tampa could also join later on. But realistically I don’t think zoos or the AZA want to take on that challenge right now.
Side note: White Headed Capuchins naturally mix with South American Squirrel monkeys to forge for food but I haven’t heard of many zoos who actually do this mix?
 
Westcoastperson said:
Well I can somewhat understand why zoos only keep this one species. So this article at the economic importance section states half of all squirrel monkeys were taken from the wild for laboratory use and for the zoological and private trade. ADW: Saimiri oerstedii: INFORMATION. I am going to assume this was in reference to the South American species which is difficult by itself The Formation of a Captive Squirrel Monkey Group. So both need large social groups of strictly family members. Central American species actually need larger groups but they are less territorial. Because they need such specialized groups of over 20 I think zoos just find it easier to keep the animals they already have that have smaller groups. Also we still don’t know as much about Central American species compared to South American so overall it’s just easier to keep the current animals. And keeping two different SSPs of such difficult animals would be difficult, and it would take a while to phase out all of the current squirrel monkeys. But it could be attempted by San Diego and Los Angeles. They’re closest to Costa Rica and they have great track records with monkeys so they would be the ones to go to, Maybe Miami and Tampa could also join later on. But realistically I don’t think zoos or the AZA want to take on that challenge right now.
Side note: White Headed Capuchins naturally mix with South American Squirrel monkeys to forge for food but I haven’t heard of many zoos who actually do this mix?
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Really interesting and well reasoned post and thanks for contributing it to the thread.

Another thing I would add to what you've said is that there are probably steep difficulties to obtaining the species due to Costa Rican legislation which is notoriously strict when it comes to native biodiversity.

I can understand why zoos opt for the easier option of the Bolivian squirrel monkey based on what you've said in a purely pragmatic sense.

However I don't understand why zoos don't embrace and rise to the challenge of the Central American squirrel monkey based on it being an endangered species that could be argued to require ex-situ management.

I don't see why the larger group size necessary for the Central American would be a problem as most zoos that keep the Bolivian keep these in large groups that often number over twenty animals.

The diet doesn't seem like it would be so difficult to provide in captivity either and I doubt that it would differ from that given to the Bolivian.

It strikes me as somewhat similar to zoos keeping brown capuchins as opposed to Buffy headed capuchins or ring tailed lemurs as opposed to numerous eulemur species or emperor tamarins as opposed to pied tamarins in that it is just easier to go with the easy option.

I can't say that I've heard of the two being mixed but a problem with capuchins and other primate species and particularly smaller ones can be agonistic behaviour.
 
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Onychorhynchus coronatus said:
Really interesting and well reasoned post and thanks for contributing it to the thread.

Another thing I would add to what you've said is that there are probably steep difficulties to obtaining the species due to Costa Rican legislation which is notoriously strict when it comes to native biodiversity.

I can understand why zoos opt for the easier option of the Bolivian squirrel monkey based on what you've said in a purely pragmatic sense.

However I don't understand why zoos don't embrace and rise to the challenge of the Central American squirrel monkey based on it being an endangered species that could be argued to require ex-situ management.

I don't see why the larger group size necessary for the Central American would be a problem as most zoos that keep the Bolivian keep these in large groups that often number over twenty animals.

The diet doesn't seem like it would be so difficult to provide in captivity either and I doubt that it would differ from that given to the Bolivian.

It strikes me as somewhat similar to zoos keeping brown capuchins as opposed to Buffy headed capuchins or ring tailed lemurs as opposed to numerous eulemur species or emperor tamarins as opposed to pied tamarins in that it is just easier to go with the easy option.

I can't say that I've heard of the two being mixed but a problem with capuchins and other primate species and particularly smaller ones can be agonistic behaviour.
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I think zoos just aren’t thinking about it. They have what they have and they are ok with that. If zoos ever are to get Central American Squirrel Monkeys it will probably be when the population gets dangerously low and intervention is needed. I’m sure at that point the Costa Rican Government will allow the removal of the species for ex-situ breeding.
 
Westcoastperson said:
I think zoos just aren’t thinking about it. They have what they have and they are ok with that. If zoos ever are to get Central American Squirrel Monkeys it will probably be when the population gets dangerously low and intervention is needed. I’m sure at that point the Costa Rican Government will allow the removal of the species for ex-situ breeding.
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Yes I totally agree with you that it seems that they are ok keeping the non threatened species and uninterested in the endangered.

I would like to think that the in-situ Conservation of the Central American squirrel monkey will be successful and that there will never be a need for ex-situ but you never really know with these sorts of things.

If ex-situ ever does become a necessity then I would hope that zoos step up to the challenge and embrace that responsibility.
 
Onychorhynchus coronatus said:
Yes I totally agree with you that it seems that they are ok keeping the non threatened species and uninterested in the endangered.

I would like to think that the in-situ Conservation of the Central American squirrel monkey will be successful and that there will never be a need for ex-situ but you never really know with these sorts of things.

If ex-situ ever does become a necessity then I would hope that zoos step up to the challenge and embrace that responsibility.
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I don’t think they are explicitly saying they don’t want endangered species I think they just aren’t going out of their way to get new endangered species from the wild to replace them with common species.
Zoos will step up unless there is mass outrage from the public or some sort of anti monkey captivity trend going around. Because the only animal that hasn’t gotten attention from zoos when it went below 100 individuals was the vaquita because they were afraid of being criticized for cetacean captivity(cowards).
 
Westcoastperson said:
I don’t think they are explicitly saying they don’t want endangered species I think they just aren’t going out of their way to get new endangered species from the wild to replace them with common species.
Zoos will step up unless there is mass outrage from the public or some sort of anti monkey captivity trend going around. Because the only animal that hasn’t gotten attention from zoos when it went below 100 individuals was the vaquita because they were afraid of being criticized for cetacean captivity(cowards).
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Yes I think it is an aversion to risk and to challenge that is one of the biggest drivers of this not only with this species but many others besides.

Let's hope there isn't a need for zoos to have to step up with this species and that the Conservation can be addressed in an in-situ capacity.
 
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