Brazilian bare-faced tamarin
The Pied tamarin has a brown lower body and a fluffy white upper body. Their face is black and hairless, which is the reason for their nickname: the Brazilian bare-faced tamarin. The Pied tamarin does not have nails, but instead has claws that they adapted in order to quickly scale trees in order to retrieve food or escape predators. These nails also allow the tamarin to dig into tree bark and extract sap which they then eat.
Pied tamarins occur at the city limits of Manaus, the capital of the Amazonas state of Brazil and up to 35 km to the north and 100 km to the east. The main distribution is in the rio Cuieiras and rio Preto da Eva interfluvium. Pied tamarins are also found in the adjacent rio Preto da Eva and rio Urubu interfluvium, but are comparatively rare. Pied tamarins live in old-growth forests, sand forests, and smaller secondary forest fragments.
Pied tamarins live in groups of 2 to 15 members with little intra-group competition. Each group has a home range of 10-100 ha and the females are considered to be the dominant gender. In each group, only one female is selected to breed and give birth to infants. This female is called the "Alpha Female" and reproduction by other females of the group is behaviorally suppressed. Pied tamarins are diurnal and arboreal and run and jump quickly through the trees. They spend much of their day foraging and must be on high alert for aerial and terrestrial predators. To communicate with each other Pied tamarins use whistles chirps, and scent marking. Grooming is also an important part of their social behavior.
Pied tamarins are omnivores. They eat fruit, flowers, nectar, insects, spiders, small vertebrates, and bird eggs.
Pied tamarins are polyandrous with only the Alpha female mating with many males within the group. After the gestation period of 140-170 days, she typically gives birth to twins. Infants are cared for primarily by the father and turned over to the mother only to nurse; however, the entire group helps with the care of the infants that the alpha female birthed. Infants are born completely helpless. Around 21 days after birth they start to explore their surrounding and at 20 weeks old they can eat solid food brought by their parents. Young females become reproductively mature when they are around 18 months old, and males are ready to breed at the age of 2 years.
PIed tamarins are threatened by the destruction of their natural habitat, competition with Golden-handed tamarin and disease. Within the Manaus area, pied tamarins are threatened by domestic and feral cats and dogs, electrocution from power lines, and the pet trade. Additionally, rural settlement and increasing livestock agriculture continue to encroach upon and degrade the Pied tamarin's remaining habitat.
The IUCN Red List and other sources don’t provide the number of the Pied tamarin total population size. Currently, this species is classified as Critically Endangered (CR) on the IUCN Red List, and its numbers today are decreasing.
Pied tamarins eat many plants and consume the seeds of various plant species. They eat and disperse the seeds around their environment, thus bolstering their ecosystem. Pied tamarins also eat small animals, which keeps the insect and amphibian populations in check.
