Photo Special: Baby Primates

Young chimpanzee
Pan troglodytes (Blumenbach, 1775)
Hominidae; Primates; Mammalia; Chordata
Colchester Zoo
June 2009

High five anyone? Actually, this young chimp (with lighter coloured hair than I’ve ever seen on one) was throwing a tantrum. An adult female was trying to open a locked door by pushing a twig through the bars of the door to reach the lock. The young chimp was either trying to help, or just playing about. The adult got a bit annoyed and jumped, scaring the young one in the process. At the point where I took this photo, it was screaming.

What else can I say about chimpanzees that you don’t already know? Despite there being two species, Pan troglodytes and the rarer and lesser known bonobo, or pygmy chimpanzee, P. paniscus. I refuse to call P. troglodytes the ‘common chimpanzee’, as how can you call an endangered species common? No, I’d prefer ‘greater chimpanzee’ in contrast with ‘pygmy’, or just plain old ‘chimpanzee’. The generic name, Pan, probably derives from the ancient Greek god of nature with the same name. The name troglodytes means ‘cave-dweller’, something that doesn’t quite describe the chimpanzee that well. The bonobo’s specific name, paniscus, means ‘Pan-like’.



Young L’Hoest’s guenon
Cercopithecus lhoesti P. Sclater, 1899
Cercopithecidae; Primates; Mammalia; Chordata
Colchester Zoo
June 2009

The genus Cercopithecus contains approximately 22 species of long-tailed African monkeys often called ‘guenons’. The L’Hoest’s guenon (too many apostrophes in that name!) is from central Africa and is classified as Vulnerable by the IUCN. Its closest relatives within the genus are the Preuss’ guenon (C. preussi) from Nigeria, Cameroon, Equatorial Guinea and its island of Bioko, and the sun-tailed guenon (C. solatus), discovered in 1984 in Gabon. As you can see, L’Hoest’s guenons, at least juveniles, like carrots. They are mostly herbivorous in the wild.



Young mandrill
Mandrillus sphinx (Linnaeus, 1758)
Cercopithecidae; Primates; Mammalia; Chordata
Colchester Zoo
June 2009

Belonging to the same family of Old World monkeys as the guenons, but sharing little in common physically, the mandrill and drill (M. leucophaeus) are baboon-like monkeys from west Africa. Mandrills are easily recognised, especially the males, due to their baboon-like build and bare facial skin. In males, the nose is red and the tissue on either side of it is powder blue. The skin is even brighter in a real animal than it is in a photograph; my camera couldn’t cope with the brightness of the adult male’s face and it looks white instead of red and blue. Not only is the front end brightly coloured, but the male mandrill’s rear end is too. Red, blue and even violet colour the skin of the buttocks, perineum and scrotum, while the penis is as scarlet as his nose. It is therefore obvious that colour vision is not only well-developed in mandrills, but is extremely important to their social and sexual behaviours. The fur of mandrills of both sexes is dark with rufous patches, especially on the chest. There are even white patches behind the ears which show when the animal has its back to you. In short, in all angles, whether the mandrill is facing you or has its arse in your face, the colours cannot be ignored.



Young white-lipped tamarin
Saguinus labiatus (E. Geoffroy in Humboldt, 1812)
Callitrichidae; Primates; Mammalia; Chordata
Colchester Zoo
June 2009

I just love the curious expression on this little guy’s face. The most adorable thing about marmosets and tamarins (I’ll explain the difference in a minute) to me is the way they tilt their heads from side to side when they are close to a human face. This young tamarin was doing just that, but all my photos of it doing that are blurred as it was so close, even my macro lens was failing.

Most tamarins belong to the genus Saguinus. The most familiar species of the genus are the cotton-top tamarin (S. oedipus – the oedipus meaning ‘swollen foot’, rather than the mother-lover), looking a tad like Alfred Einstein, and the emperor tamarin (S. imperator), with suitably imperial moustache. The other more well known tamarins belong to the genus Leontopithecus, the lion tamarins. Four species are known, all from the coastal forests of Brazil, the most well known being the pure orange golden lion tamarin (L. rosalia). It should be renamed the golden lion tangerine.

Marmosets are generally smaller, and belong to the genera Callithrix, Mico, Callibella and Cebuella, the latter containing the diminutive pygmy marmoset (C. pygmaea), the smallest monkey of all. Marmosets are set apart from tamarins by the presence of extra long lower incisor teeth, which they use to scrape holes in tree bark to lap the exudates (sweet sap) that the tree uses to heal the wound. Marmosets then have to rely less on fruits and insects when they are able to tap this energy-rich food source. Tamarins do not eat exudates because they lack the long incisors.



Young emperor tamarin
Saguinus imperator subgrisescens (Goeldi, 1907)
Callitrichidae; Primates; Mammalia; Chordata
Colchester Zoo
June 2009

This subspecies of emperor tamarin complements its wonderful Victorian gentleman moustache with a wispy white beard. Emperor tamarins are found in the western Amazon Basin, where the high tributaries of the great river come down from the Andes in Peru.