Wied's Marmoset
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 Wied's Marmoset at the Blank Park Zoo in Des Moines, Iowa.
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| Callithrix (Callithrix) kuhlii Coimbra-Filho, 1985 |
Wied's Marmoset (Callithrix (Callithrix) kuhlii), also known as Wied's Black-tufted-ear Marmoset, is a New World monkey that lives in tropical and subtropical forests of south western Brazil. Unlike other marmosets, Wied's Marmoset lives in groups consisting of 4 or 5 females and 2 or 3 males (plus children). They are matriarchal, and only the dominant female is allowed to mate. Like other marmosets, the offspring are always born in pairs.
This monkey supplements its diet of sap with fruit, nectar, flowers and seeds, as well as spiders and insects. Since these are harvested from the middle and lower part of the forest, Wied's Marmoset often travels and forages in the company of the Golden-headed Lion Tamarin, which forages in the canopy.
Wied's Marmoset is eaten by birds of prey (the Harpy Eagle, the Gray Hawk, the Roadside Hawk and the White-tailed Hawk), felines (the Jaguar, Jaguarundi and Ocelot) and snakes.
Wied's Marmoset is highly social, spending much of its time grooming. It has individually distinctive calls, and it communicates through gestures and olfactory markings as well.
The coloring of Wied's Marmoset is mostly black, with white markings on cheeks and forehead. It has rings on its tail and black tufts of fur coming out of its ears.
[edit] Chimerism
It has been proven that a mutual exchange of germ cells often happens between the twins evolving in utero such producing so called chimeras - organisms containing two sets of cells stemming from two different zygotes - ova fertilized by two different sperms (possibly even produced by two different males). This implies that some tissues of a Wied's marmoset's body could come from a second ("minor") father.[3]
At first researchers found the chimerism among the cells of the blood tissue, later, however, it has been proven that this phenomenon occurs in every type of tissue. The most interesting implication of this fact consists in the possibility that even a sperm or an ovum produced by an individual can stem from its sibling's germ cell - so an offspring of such an individual happens genetically to be its sibling's progeny.[3]
[edit] References
- ^ Groves, Colin (16 November 2005). in Wilson, D. E., and Reeder, D. M. (eds): Mammal Species of the World, 3rd edition, Johns Hopkins University Press, 131. ISBN 0-801-88221-4.
- ^ Rylands, A.B., Bampi, M.I., Chiarello, A.G., da Fonseca, G.A.B., Mendes, S.L. & Marcelino, M. (2003). Callithrix kuhlii. 2006 IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. IUCN 2006. Retrieved on 2006-07-17.
- ^ a b Ross, C.N., French, J.A., and Ortí, G. (2007). "Germ-line chimerism and paternal care in marmosets (Callithrix kuhlii)". Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 104: 6278. doi:.
