Animal Diversity Web

Ge­o­graphic Range

Low­land, coastal rain for­est re­gion in South­east Brazil.

• Biogeographic Regions
• neotropical
  • native

Habi­tat

They re­side in dense for­est that is en­tan­gled with many vines and has a high den­sity of fruit. The cli­mate is ex­tremely humid. They oc­cupy the closed canopy, often re­main­ing 10-30 me­ters off the ground. They sleep in tree holes for pro­tec­tion from preda­tors and warmth at night. (Sherr, 1996)

• Terrestrial Biomes
• rainforest

Phys­i­cal De­scrip­tion

The golden lion tamarin is be­tween 200-366mm long (8-13in) with a tail length of be­tween 315-400mm (12-15in). There is no sex­ual di­mor­phism. They have small, rounded heads adorned with a thick golden mane on the crown, cheeks, throat, ears and shoul­ders. Their bare faces are flat and have widely spaced nos­trils. Their bod­ies are cov­ered in long, soft silky hair with col­oration rang­ing from pale golden to a rich red­dish-gold. One in­ter­est­ing char­ac­ter­is­tic is that these tamarins have claws, not flat­tened fin­ger­nails. (Kleiman, 1981; Pearl, 1991; Sherr, 1996)

• Other Physical Features
• endothermic
• bilateral symmetry

• Average mass

  654.5 g

  23.07 oz

  AnAge

Re­pro­duc­tion

There is one breed­ing pair per group. The rear­ing of young is a co­op­er­a­tive ef­fort by all in the group, al­though the ma­jor­ity is done by the fa­ther.

• Mating System
• monogamous
• cooperative breeder

Golden lion tamarins nor­mally breed twice per year, be­tween Sep­tem­ber and March. Fe­males give birth to twins after a ges­ta­tion of 130 to 135 days. The age of sex­ual ma­tu­rity is 18 months for fe­males and 24 months for males.

• Key Reproductive Features
• iteroparous
• seasonal breeding
• gonochoric/gonochoristic/dioecious (sexes separate)
• sexual
• viviparous

• Breeding interval

  Golden lion tamarins breed twice a year.

• Breeding season

  Golden lion tamarins breed between September and March, the warmest and wettest time of year.

• Average number of offspring

  2

• Average number of offspring

  2

  AnAge

• Range gestation period

  130 to 135 days

• Average weaning age

  90 days

• Average age at sexual or reproductive maturity (female)

  18 months

• Average age at sexual or reproductive maturity (female)
  Sex: female

  547 days

  AnAge

• Average age at sexual or reproductive maturity (male)

  24 months

• Average age at sexual or reproductive maturity (male)
  Sex: male

  730 days

  AnAge

At birth, the golden lion tamarin is fully furred with eyes open. It clings to its mother for the first few weeks and nurses for a pe­riod of 90 days. At about week 5, it be­gins to ex­pand its cu­ri­ousity and ex­pe­ri­ence things on its own. In some cases, it has been ob­served that a par­ent prefers to tend to an off­spring of its own sex, but with ex­pe­ri­enced par­ents, it did not make a dif­fer­ence. (Nowack, 1997; Pearl, 1991; Sherr, 1996)

• Parental Investment
• precocial
• pre-fertilization
  • provisioning
  • protecting
    • female
• pre-hatching/birth
  • provisioning
    • female
  • protecting
    • female
• pre-weaning/fledging
  • provisioning
    • female
  • protecting
    • male
    • female
• pre-independence
  • protecting
    • male
    • female
• post-independence association with parents
• extended period of juvenile learning

Lifes­pan/Longevity

Golden lion tamarins live at least 15 years.

• Average lifespan
  Status: wild

  15 years

• Average lifespan
  Sex: male
  Status: captivity

  24.8 years

  Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research

• Average lifespan
  Sex: female
  Status: captivity

  22.0 years

  Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research

Be­hav­ior

Golden lion tamarins are a so­cial species. In the wild, they are found in groups of 2-8, often made up of fam­ily mem­bers. The groups com­prise breed­ing pair, off­spring of 1 or 2 lit­ters and pos­si­bly other rel­a­tives. The groups are usu­ally nu­clear fam­i­lies, but can be ex­tended fam­i­lies. These tamarins are ter­ri­to­r­ial and de­fend their area with scent mark­ings and vo­cal­ized threats. Some signs of ag­gres­sion are an open mouth, an arched back and star­ing.

Golden lion tamarins groom them­selves much like other pri­mates. Mainly the males groom the fe­males. Adults spend a lot of time groom­ing and hud­dling. The ju­ve­niles play a lot. They chase each other around and wres­tle.

Their sleep pat­terns are reg­u­lar: they sleep from dusk until sun­rise, of­ten­times with a mid­day nap.

They have a quad-gait, mean­ing they use all fours to get around. They run and walk through the trees and spring and leap be­tween branches and vines. Even though they have very long tails, noth­ing has been dis­cussed re­gard­ing if they use them to swing from or not.

(Kleiman, 1981; Sherr, 1996)

• Key Behaviors
• arboreal
• scansorial
• diurnal
• motile
• territorial
• social

Com­mu­ni­ca­tion and Per­cep­tion

• Perception Channels
• tactile
• chemical

Food Habits

The golden lion tamarin is om­niv­o­rous (in­sec­tiv­o­rous and fru­giv­o­rous). It eats spi­ders, snails, small lizards, eggs, small birds, fruits and veg­eta­bles. They eat in­sects using their long, slen­der fin­gers to probe into crevices in the tree bark. This tech­nique is called "mi­cro­ma­nip­u­la­tion." It is un­com­mon that these tamarins will share food with oth­ers out­side of their fam­ily mem­bers, but among the fam­ily mem­bers, some food shar­ing does take place. Ju­ve­niles, for ex­am­ple, play­fully steal food from par­ents or sib­lings. (Sherr, 1996)

• Primary Diet
• omnivore

• Animal Foods
• birds
• reptiles
• eggs
• insects
• terrestrial non-insect arthropods
• mollusks

• Plant Foods
• leaves
• fruit

Eco­nomic Im­por­tance for Hu­mans: Pos­i­tive

At one time, peo­ple cap­tured and sold golden lion tamarins as pets. Their rapid de­cline in num­bers has thwarted many peo­ple's de­sires for these ex­otic pets. They were also ex­ploited in zoos and used in lab­o­ra­to­ries. (Nowack, 1997)

Eco­nomic Im­por­tance for Hu­mans: Neg­a­tive

Con­ser­va­tion ef­forts have made valu­able land un­avail­able for human use. (Nowack, 1997; Sherr, 1996)

Con­ser­va­tion Sta­tus

The golden lion tamarin is one of the rarest of all mam­mals in the wild, if not the rarest. It is cer­tainly one of the most se­verely en­dan­gered of all pri­mates in the world. There are only 400 left in the world, most on or near the Reserva Bi­o­log­ica de Poco des Antas in Rio de Janiero. The de­struc­tion of their habi­tat has ac­counted for their loss in num­bers. The trees they live in are cut down for lum­ber, agri­cul­ture and hous­ing. Large tree­less areas pre­vent their spread.

There is hope be­cause they have been bred suc­cess­fully in cap­tiv­ity and this is con­tin­u­ally rais­ing their num­bers. Rein­tro­duc­tion into the wild has been suc­cess­ful.

(Sherr, 1996)

• IUCN Red List

  Endangered
  More information

Other Com­ments

Preda­tors in­clude hawks and other rap­tors, cats and snakes. Golden lion tamarins have very dis­tinct vo­cal­iza­tions, in­clud­ing about 17 spe­cific calls used for things such as alarms, de­fense, etc. Their sounds in­clude trilling for solo ac­tiv­ity, cluck­ing dur­ing for­ag­ing, whin­ing for con­tact and long, song-like calls for vig­i­lance. There is some sex­ual di­mor­phism in the calls.

(Sherr, 1996; Nowack 1997)

Con­trib­u­tors

Sarah Fran­tom (au­thor), Uni­ver­sity of Michi­gan-Ann Arbor.

Ref­er­ences

Kleiman, Devra G. 1981. Mam­malian Species #148. Amer­i­can So­ci­ety of Mam­mal­o­gists, New York, New York.

Pearl, Mary Carliss. 1991. The Il­lus­trated En­cy­clo­pe­dia of Wildlife, Vol­ume 5. En­cy­clo­pe­dia Bri­tan­nica Cor­po­ra­tion, Lakeville, Con­necti­cut.

Abi­gail Sherr. 1996. http://​www.​si.​edu/​glt/​

Ronald M. Nowack. 1997. http://​press.​jhu.​edu/​books/​walker