40 Fun Facts About Emperor Tamarin

The emperor tamarin is said to be named after which monarch, thanks to its long white moustache?

Wilhelm II was the last German emperor, ruling until 1918. The monkey's name reportedly began as a zoologist's joke and simply stuck.

How do the males of an emperor tamarin troop spend most of the day once babies arrive?

Carrying the infants is the males' job: they hand them to the mother only to nurse, roughly every two to three hours, then take them straight back.

Emperor tamarin mothers, like most of their closest monkey relatives, usually give birth to what?

Twins make up more than 80% of births in the emperor tamarin's family, the only monkeys that regularly produce them.

Emperor tamarins have what in place of flat nails on every finger and toe except the big toe?

Claws let emperor tamarins cling to bark and climb straight up or down a trunk; only the big toe keeps a flat nail.

Captive emperor tamarins are known to lie on their backs to invite what from their keepers?

Petting is a treat for captive emperor tamarins, which enjoy being stroked by hand; wild troops get the same comfort by grooming one another.

What can a spider monkey do with its tail that the long-tailed emperor tamarin cannot?

Grip branches: a spider monkey's tail works like a fifth hand. An emperor tamarin's tail is longer than its body but serves only for balance.

Emperor tamarins rapidly flick which body part to show displeasure or warn off intruders?

Tongue flicking, a rapid in-and-out motion, usually comes with shrill, high-pitched calls that tell trespassers whose territory they have entered.

Which member of an emperor tamarin troop usually holds the highest rank and leads the group?

The eldest female rules the troop and reigns over its mature males, even though males usually outnumber females in a group.

Which hazard makes weeks 5 to 15 the deadliest for young emperor tamarins as they begin to explore?

Falling from trees is one of the greatest threats to an infant's survival, which is why older sisters help the adults watch the youngsters.

By eating fruit and travelling widely each day, emperor tamarins help rainforest trees do what?

Spread their seeds: the seeds pass through the monkeys and land in droppings far from the parent tree, which helps the forest regenerate.

Manú National Park, a World Heritage Site that shelters emperor tamarins, lies in which country?

Peru protects the monkeys in Manú, where indigenous communities may still hunt; studies found that the hunting has had minimal effect on emperor tamarin numbers.

Emperor tamarins share the family Callitrichidae with lion tamarins and which other tiny monkeys?

Marmosets and tamarins together are the smallest of the simian primates, and every species in the family lives in the trees.

Although emperor tamarin numbers are falling, the IUCN Red List puts the species in which category?

Least Concern is the Red List's lowest-risk category: emperor tamarins remain widespread, though forest clearance keeps shrinking and splitting their range.

Roughly how much does a full-grown emperor tamarin, a monkey the size of a squirrel, weigh?

About 500 grams is the top of the adult range, while a newborn is around 35 grams: a large baby for so small a mother.

When swept back, an emperor tamarin's white moustache reaches beyond which part of the body?

Its shoulders are no limit for the moustache: at rest it hangs to the chest in two strands, and laid back it reaches past them on both sides.

Which members of an emperor tamarin troop grow the long white moustache behind the imperial name?

Both sexes have the moustache, and so do the young, so unlike its namesake's whiskers it is no badge of adult maleness.

Why can emperor tamarins feed on the outermost twigs of a tree, where bigger monkeys cannot follow?

Their light weight lets slender branch tips bear them, opening up fruit and flowers on small-crowned trees that heavier monkeys cannot reach.

How do emperor tamarins mainly travel from tree to tree through the rainforest canopy?

Leaping between branches with quick, jerky movements is the emperor tamarin's style; zoologists class the species among the "leapers".

Emperor tamarins get most of the protein in their diet by stalking and eating what?

Insects such as locusts, beetles and butterflies supply most of the protein, and hunting for animal prey takes up about a third of the monkeys' day.

Emperor tamarins have narrow hands that lack which feature of the human hand?

Opposable thumbs are absent in every tamarin species; the monkeys hold on with one whole hand and pick fruit with the free one.

In the dry season, when fruit runs short, emperor tamarins get roughly half their plant food from what?

Nectar supplies about half of the plant diet in the dry months at one well-studied site, up from almost nothing when fruit is abundant.

Emperor tamarins lick which sugary food from holes that other animals have already gnawed into bark?

Tree sap is a small but useful extra, supplying carbohydrates and minerals from wounds that other animals opened in the bark.

Emperor tamarins were once thought monogamous; field studies revealed which mating system instead?

Polyandry means one female mates with several males. Because no male can tell which young are his, each has a reason to invest in them.

The emperor tamarin often forages in mixed troops with which smaller relatives that keep lower down?

Saddleback tamarins travel below about 10 metres and emperor tamarins above it, and the two species can spend up to a fifth of the day foraging together.

How do emperor tamarins often take over a fruiting tree that smaller, faster tamarins reached first?

Using size to intimidate works because the smaller species finds food faster; the bigger emperor tamarins follow it, then scare it out of the tree.

Why are mixed-species troops thought to benefit emperor tamarins and their partners alike?

More eyes for predators means more vigilance, and the species even respond to one another's alarm calls.

Emperor tamarins give loud long calls, audible over 150 metres away, most reliably at which moment?

Leaving the sleeping site each morning sets off the calls, which carry on through the day to keep the troop together and neighbours informed.

Emperor tamarins live in Acre and Amazonas, two rainforest states of which country?

Brazil holds the northern part of the range, yet no protected area there is confirmed to shelter emperor tamarins, unlike in neighbouring countries.

Emperor tamarins, with their sideways-facing nostrils, belong to which broad group of primates?

New World monkeys live only in the Americas; they descend from African simians that colonised South America tens of millions of years ago.

How does an emperor tamarin father reportedly help at the very moment his young are born?

Biting the umbilical cord is the father's first job, keepers report, and he follows it by licking the newborns clean.

Along with logging, which farming activity drives much forest loss in the emperor tamarin's range?

Cattle ranching and logging follow new highways into once-remote forest, breaking it into fragments that leave tamarin populations isolated.

Emperor tamarins are listed in Appendix II of which treaty regulating the global wildlife trade?

CITES Appendix II means emperor tamarins may be traded across borders only with an export permit, a check meant to keep trade from threatening their survival.

Which Swiss zoologist, once head of a museum in Belém, reportedly named the emperor tamarin as a joke?

Emil Goeldi, who wore a similar moustache himself, gave the name in jest and it stuck; the Belém museum he reorganised now bears his name.

What did taxidermists reportedly do to emperor tamarin specimens to heighten a royal likeness?

Taxidermists twisted the moustache up to match the monarch's; in life the whiskers droop, as became clear once living animals reached zoos.

The two forms of emperor tamarin are told apart mainly by whether the chin carries which feature?

A white beard grows beneath the moustache of one form, while the other has only faint dark whiskers on its chin.

More than half of female emperor tamarins have which ability that all the males lack?

Full colour vision, including red, helps those females judge which fruit is ripe; males and the remaining females see only blues and greens.

What can emperor tamarins work out about an unfamiliar tamarin just from hearing its long call?

The caller's sex is clear to them from sound alone, and they can also tell their own species' calls from those of the tamarins they travel with.

Pheromones released by a scent-marking female emperor tamarin have what effect on other females?

They stop breeding: the chemical signal suppresses the fertility of the troop's other females, leaving a single mother for all the helpers to support.

At Washington's National Zoo, emperor tamarins eat fruit, vegetables and which protein-rich staple?

Hard-boiled eggs are on the zoo menu beside green beans, and wild emperor tamarins are known to eat bird eggs too.

What colour are an emperor tamarin's hands and feet, in contrast to the mostly grey body?

Black hands and feet, together with a dark face, frame the white moustache and set it off against the grey, gold-flecked coat.