Scientific name: Cebuella pymaea
Conservation status:
Life expectancy: 10-12 years in the wild
Gestation period: 119-140 days
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Lifestyle and Location:
- These primates live in evergreen and forests on the rivers edge in the Amazon Basin in South America.
- It is a gum eating expert (gummivore) and can eat off the same tree all its life.
- They cling on to the tree with their sharp claws and gnaw on the bark to get into the tree. This will leave the bark very bumpy due to them sucking out the sap, leaving a wound. They will also eat insects, leaves, fruit and nectar to get the rest of their necessary nutrients.
- The main predators of the pygmy marmoset are vipers, tayra and cats such as ocelots.
- The group consists of 2-9 members however normally around 6.
Appearance:
They range from 11cm-15cm with a tail of 17cm-22cm so is longer than their body. The average adult weighs just over 100 grams. The fur is a colour of mixed brownish-gold, grey and black on its back and head with yellow and orange on its under body. The tail has black rings and its face has fleeks of white on the cheeks.
Joss‘s Facts
- The female gives birth to twins twice a year and the parental care is shared between the group.
- 75% of their diet consists of gum.
- They can rotate their head a full 180 degrees and leap 15 feet in the air.
- It is the smallest monkey in the world! (but not the smallest primate, that is the mouse lemur)
- Only around 25% of young Pygmy marmosets will live to adulthood due to them falling out of nests or off their mother or starvation due to the mother not being able to feed them enough milk.
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