Facts about this animal
The head-body length of pied tamarins ranges from 21 to 28 cm. The tail is 33 to 42 cm long.
There are three recognized subspecies, which all have in common a naked face and head. The ears are not haired. The tail is bicoloured, dark brown dorsally and reddish-orange ventrally. The subspecies Saguinus bicolor bicolor is white on the forepart of the body with pale brown hindquarters.
Pied tamarins are diurnal and arboreal, living in family groups consisting several unrelated adults, and the main mating system is polyandry, with monogamy and polygyny being reported. Like in most other tamarins, pied tamarin females give birth usually to twins.
Did you know?
That almost nothing is known about the habits of the bare-faced tamarin in the wild? It seems though that they are able to survive also in secondary growth forests.
|Name (Scientific)||Saguinus bicolor|
|Name (English)||Pied Tamarin|
|Name (French)||Tamarin bicolore|
|Name (Spanish)||Tamarín bicolor|
|Local names||Brazil: Sagüi-de-duas-cores, Souim-de-coleira|
|CITES Status||Appendix I|
|CMS Status||Not listed|
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|Range||Brazil (in the vicinity of Manaus)|
|Habitat||Swamp, secondary, and edge forests|
|Wild population||Unknown, but decreasing (Red List IUCN 2011)|
|Zoo population||117 registered by the International studbook (end of 2004), 90 reported to ISIS (2006)|
In the Zoo
How this animal should be transported
For air transport, Container Note 31 of the IATA Live Animals Regulations should be followed.
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Why do zoos keep this animal
The pied tamarin is a critically endangered species in the wild. With a view of building up a viable reserve population, an International Studbook has been established in 1995 under the WAZA umbrella, and coordinated conservation breeding programmes are operated at the regional level by EAZA.