Golden Lion Tamarin
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40 free Golden Lion Tamarin trivia questions with answers — trivia quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
The golden lion tamarin is a small monkey with a coat the colour of a sunset and a story to match. Half a century ago only a couple of hundred were left in the wild; today it is one of the best-known recovery stories in conservation. This quiz turns the best fun facts about golden lion tamarins into questions: how the animal got its name, how its families share the work of raising young, what it eats and where it sleeps, how it talks to its neighbours, and what people have done to keep it alive. Every answer comes with a short explanation, so the set works for kids doing a school project, zoo visitors, teachers planning a rainforest lesson and anyone who likes learning something new in a few minutes.
30 of 40 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01What do golden lion tamarin mothers usually give birth to, a rarity among monkeys and apes?
Twins
Twins are the norm: in one Brazilian reserve, 78% of recorded births in 2001 were pairs. The rest of the family helps carry and raise them.
Q 02Once the babies are a few weeks old, which member of a golden lion tamarin family usually carries them most?
The father
The father does the biggest share of the carrying once the first few weeks have passed, and the mother takes the infants back to nurse. Brothers and sisters take turns as well.
Q 03Which everyday Brazilian object has pictured a golden lion tamarin since 2002?
A banknote
A banknote: the 20-reais note, launched in 2002, carries the monkey, a year after the 2-reais note gave the same honour to a sea turtle.
Q 04How did Washington's National Zoo once prepare golden lion tamarins for life in the wild?
Letting them range free
Letting them range free at the zoo went on for many years. The idea was to rehearse treetop life before the monkeys were sent to Brazil for release.
Q 05Where does a golden lion tamarin family usually huddle together to sleep through the night?
Tree holes
Tree holes were the bedroom on about 64% of nights in one long study. A family keeps a few favourite hollows and often returns to the same one the next evening.
Q 06What is a golden lion tamarin's long tail mainly for, given that it cannot grip a branch?
Balance
Balance is the job: the tail steadies the monkey as it springs from branch to branch. Unlike a spider monkey's tail, it cannot be used to hang.
Q 07Which feature earns the golden lion tamarin the big-cat part of its common name?
Its mane
Its mane of extra-long hair frames a dark, nearly bare face, much like a lion's. The bright coat supplies the golden half of the name.
Q 08Every wild golden lion tamarin lives in which single Brazilian state on the southeast coast?
Rio de Janeiro
Rio de Janeiro state holds the whole wild population, in forest patches about 100 km from the famous city. The species lives nowhere else on Earth.
Q 09What do golden lion tamarins have on most of their digits that helps them cling to vertical trunks?
Claws
Claws, strictly claw-like nails, replace the flat nails found on other monkeys and apes. They dig into bark, so the animals can cling to a trunk and climb straight up it.
Q 10Golden lion tamarins help their forest regrow by spreading what in their droppings?
Seeds
Seeds swallowed with the fruit are carried off and scattered through the forest. In one study the monkeys ate from 160 different plant species.
Q 11Which mosquito-borne disease killed about 30% of wild golden lion tamarins from 2016 to 2019?
Yellow fever
Yellow fever swept through the monkeys and people of southeast Brazil alike. In one reserve the tamarin count crashed from 380 to 32.
Q 12What have biologists given hundreds of wild golden lion tamarins to protect them after a deadly outbreak?
A vaccine
A vaccine made from surplus human doses was scaled down to suit the monkeys' small bodies. By the end of 2024, 489 of the animals had received it.
Q 13Which Brazilian biome, over 85% of it cleared, is the golden lion tamarin's only wild home?
Atlantic Forest
Q 21Besides forest loss, wild golden lion tamarins were long threatened by capture for sale as what?
Pets
Pets taken from the wild, on top of centuries of forest clearing, pushed the species to the edge. Capture for sale is still on the conservation group's list of threats.
Q 22Which golden lion tamarins leave the sleeping den first each morning and enter it last at night?
The adults
The adults go out first and turn in last, so the youngsters are never left exposed. A family sets off about ten minutes after sunrise.
Q 23Most golden lion tamarin babies are born during which part of the year, when fruit is plentiful?
The rainy season
The rainy season, from about October to March, brings the glut of fruit that nursing mothers need. Mating peaks months earlier, as the previous rains come to an end.
Atlantic Forest once stretched along most of Brazil's coast. Five centuries of clearing have left the monkeys in scattered fragments.
Q 14Which status does the IUCN Red List give the golden lion tamarin, one step better than before 2003?
Endangered
Endangered has been the listing since 2003, when the growing wild population left the critical category. Fewer than 200 animals were thought to survive in the early 1970s.
Q 15Where do golden lion tamarin infants ride when a relative carries them between feedings?
On the back
On the back is where the babies cling. Two infants together can weigh a fifth as much as their mother, so she needs the help.
Q 16What did tamarin tracker Andreia Martins carry on 2 August 2016, inspiring Golden Lion Tamarin Day?
The Olympic flame
The Olympic flame crossed tamarin country on its way to the Games, with the field team's coordinator as a torchbearer. Brazil made 2 August a national day in 2018.
Q 17What do golden lion tamarins use their unusually long, narrow hands and fingers to do?
Feel for hidden prey
Feel for hidden prey is the answer: a tamarin pushes its fingers, hand and even forearm into bark cracks and curled leaves, groping blind for insects and frogs.
Q 18Which tiny South American monkeys share the family Callitrichidae with the golden lion tamarin?
Marmosets
Marmosets and tamarins together form a family of the smallest monkeys of all. Lion tamarins lack the special teeth their cousins use to gouge trees for gum.
Q 19In which language is the golden lion tamarin known by the name mico-leão-dourado?
Portuguese
Portuguese is the language of Brazil, the animal's only home. The name is also carried by the Associação Mico-Leão-Dourado, the group that leads its protection.
Q 20How do golden lion tamarins leave lasting messages around their territory without making a sound?
Scent marking
Scent marking with several glands leaves smells that may tell neighbours a tamarin's sex and rank. Rival groups also settle border disputes with loud calls and chases.
Q 24Which food do some golden lion tamarin groups turn to heavily in the cool, dry season?
Nectar
Nectar is usually a small part of the menu, around 6 to 10% of plant feeding. Some groups concentrate heavily on it during the cool, dry months of certain years.
Q 25The golden lion tamarin belongs to which broad group of primates, along with howlers and sakis?
New World monkeys
New World monkeys live only in the Americas and have flatter noses with sideways-facing nostrils. Their line split off about 40 million years ago, after a crossing from Africa.
Q 26Which pineapple relatives growing on branches do golden lion tamarins search for frogs and insects?
Bromeliads
Bromeliads store rainwater in a cup of overlapping leaves, which turns each plant into a tiny pond full of small creatures. Tamarin families sometimes sleep in the biggest ones.
Q 27Which feature of the human hand, handy for grabbing branches, is missing in golden lion tamarins?
Opposable thumbs
Opposable thumbs are absent, so a tamarin cannot wrap a hand around a branch as a person can. It walks, runs and bounds along the tops of branches on all fours instead.
Q 28Golden lion tamarins use a separate alarm call for which kind of predator?
Flying ones
Flying ones get their own alarm, distinct from the call for hunters on the ground or in the trees. Hawks and other raptors are among the suspected predators.
Q 29Why does the Golden Lion Tamarin Association plant strips of native trees between forest fragments?
To link isolated groups
To link isolated groups is the aim: tamarins cannot cross roads or bare pasture, so tree corridors let separate families meet. Over 4 sq km had been planted by 2022.
Q 30Which cooked breakfast food is on the golden lion tamarin menu at the Smithsonian's National Zoo?
Hard-boiled eggs
Hard-boiled eggs sit alongside fruit, sweet potatoes and mealworms on the zoo's tamarin menu. Wild tamarins take theirs raw, straight from birds' nests.