![]() The marmosets also eat some nectar and fruit.Īt the San Diego Zoo, pygmy marmosets eat veggies, fruit, a specialized commercial diet for New World monkeys, crickets, mealworms, wax worms, and hard-boiled eggs. Pygmy marmosets have certain trees they like within their territory they can make up to 1,300 holes in each tree! Sometimes they lie in wait for insects, especially butterflies, which feed at the sap holes. When the sap puddles up in the hole, they lap it up with their tongue. They scamper up and down trees and thick vines headfirst and gouge a hole in the bark or vine with their sharp lower teeth, using an up-and-down sawing motion. The ability to climb is important for pygmy marmosets, as tree sap is their favorite food. But when they need to move, pygmy marmosets are fast, leaping several feet to avoid the predators that would like to make a meal out of them. They are deliberate about their movements to avoid drawing the attention of predators. Their neck is flexible, and they can turn their head backward to spot predators. That is why they dash from one safe spot to the next. They feed from just a few trees.īecause they are so small, pygmy marmosets can become prey for cats, harpy eagles, hawks, and snakes. Each marmoset group has a small home range of less than half an acre. Pygmy marmosets prefer living in dense rainforests where there are lots of hiding places among the plants. They make their home and living in forest trees or bamboo thickets near or alongside rivers and floodplains. Pygmy marmosets live in the Amazon region of Brazil, Colombia, Peru, Ecuador, and northern Bolivia. Pygmy marmoset fingernails are like claws to help them climb up and down tree trunks. Most primates have flat nails on the ends of their fingers, along with opposable thumbs that allow them to grasp objects. ![]() A mane of hair covers the pygmy marmoset's ears. This coloration gives them good camouflage. ![]() Each hair has stripes of brown and black, called agouti coloring. But there is nothing tiny about a pygmy marmoset's tail: it's longer than its body! The tail is not prehensile, but it helps the little monkey keep its balance as it gallops through the treetops.īoth male and female pygmy marmosets are orange-brown. A full-grown pygmy marmoset could fit in an adult human's hand, and it weighs about as much as a stick of butter. Marmosets and their cousins, the tamarins, are some of the tiniest primates around. It also has brown fur and a long tail like a squirrel-but it's a pygmy marmoset, the world's smallest monkey! It dodges behind tree trunks and branches, freezing and dashing, just like a squirrel. Mini monkeys: High in the rainforest canopy of South America lives a tiny monkey.
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