Animal Diversity Web

Ge­o­graphic Range

Goeldi's mar­mosets (Cal­lim­ico goeldii) are re­stricted in ge­o­graphic range to areas in Bo­livia, Peru, Colom­bia and Brazil, with the dens­est pop­u­la­tions in east­ern Peru. Their range ex­tends as far north as south­ern Co­lum­bia, close to its bor­der with Peru and Ecuador. How­ever, Goeldi's mar­mosets have not been ob­served in Ecuador. Their range con­tin­ues as far south as the bor­der of Bo­livia and Peru. In north­east­ern parts of Brazil, their range ends at the Ama­zon River, while the west­ern­most por­tion of their range ends at the foothills of the Andes in Peru. (Cornejo, 2014; Nowak, 1999; Watsa, et al., 2012)

• Biogeographic Regions
• neotropical
  • native

Habi­tat

Goeldi's mar­mosets pre­fer un­der­story habi­tats in the Ama­zon rain­for­est. They spend a ma­jor­ity of their time in veg­e­ta­tion around 5 m above the ground. They travel via ver­ti­cal cling­ing and leap­ing, mov­ing an av­er­age of 2 m per leap. Be­cause their main mode of lo­co­mo­tion re­quires dense veg­e­ta­tion, Goeldi's mar­mosets pre­fer un­der­sto­ries with an abun­dance of saplings and ver­ti­cal tree trunks.

Goeldi's mar­mosets have been re­ported liv­ing in three major habi­tat types; undis­turbed rain­for­est un­der­sto­ries, bam­boo forests, and sec­ondary growth forests. Goeldi's mar­mosets oc­ca­sion­ally make trips to the ground and up into the canopy to for­age for food. They live in the sec­ondary growth forests that have thick un­der­story growth, but can also be found in large bam­boo thick­ets with less dense un­der­growth.

The habi­tats in which Goeldi's mar­mosets live range in el­e­va­tion from 144 to 300 m above sea level. (Cornejo, 2014; Gar­ber and Leigh, 2001; Porter, 2006; Porter and Gar­ber, 2010; Watsa, et al., 2012)

• Habitat Regions
• tropical

• Terrestrial Biomes
• rainforest
• scrub forest

• Range elevation

  144 to 300 m

  472.44 to 984.25 ft

Phys­i­cal De­scrip­tion

Goeldi's mar­mosets are small pri­mates with thick, short, and smooth fur along their bod­ies and fluffier fur around their necks and tails. Fur col­oration is typ­i­cally black, but ranges from sil­ver to dark brown. These color vari­a­tions are usu­ally lim­ited to the fur on their tails and the dor­sal fur on their necks. Goeldi's mar­mosets have smooth fur along their bod­ies, with an av­er­age hair length of 2 cm. How­ever, they lack hair on their faces, hands, and feet. In these areas, their black skin is vis­i­ble.

Goeldi's mar­mosets have small claws. For adults, the com­bined length of their heads and bod­ies ranges from 210 to 230 mm, while the length of their tails ranges from 255 to 324 mm. Adults typ­i­cally weigh be­tween 393 to 860 g, though males weigh more than fe­males on av­er­age. Wild spec­i­mens usu­ally weigh less than their cap­tive coun­ter­parts. No data on ju­ve­nile Goeldi's mar­mosets have been pub­lished.

The den­tal for­mula of Goeldi's mar­mosets is 2:1:3:3/2:1:3:3. (Cornejo, 2014; Gar­ber and Porter, 2009; Nowak, 1999)

• Other Physical Features
• endothermic
• bilateral symmetry

• Sexual Dimorphism
• male larger

• Range mass

  393 to 860 g

  13.85 to 30.31 oz

Re­pro­duc­tion

Stud­ies on Goeldi's mar­mosets have re­ported dif­fer­ent mat­ing sys­tems. The most com­mon mat­ing sys­tem ob­served in the wild and in cap­tiv­ity is monogamy. How­ever, polyg­yny has also been doc­u­mented in cap­tive and wild pop­u­la­tions. In the case of polyg­yny, where one male mates with mul­ti­ple fe­males, the fe­males often be­come ag­gres­sive to­wards each other, fight­ing for so­cial dom­i­nance.

Males are typ­i­cally the in­sti­ga­tors of mat­ing events, mak­ing vo­cal­iza­tions and fa­cial ex­pres­sions to at­tract fe­males. Both males and fe­males se­lect mates within their troop, and do not leave their ter­ri­to­ries to find mates. Both par­ents ex­hibit parental care of their off­spring. (Cornejo, 2014; Gar­ber and Leigh, 2001; Watsa, et al., 2012)

• Mating System
• monogamous
• polygynous
• cooperative breeder

Whereas many new world pri­mate species give birth to twins, Goeldi's mar­mosets typ­i­cally only give birth to one in­fant at a time. How­ever, Goeldi's mar­mosets breed bian­nu­ally, mean­ing they can still po­ten­tially pro­duce two off­spring per year. The ges­ta­tion pe­riod is around 155 days and birth weights for in­fants ranges from 30 to 60 g. Fe­males give birth to their first off­spring in the wet sea­son, from Sep­tem­ber to late No­vem­ber. The sec­ond birth oc­curs later in the year, though spe­cific dates have not been re­ported. The sec­ond birth oc­curs after the first in­fant has reached sex­ual ma­tu­rity. By giv­ing birth to a sin­gle off­spring rather than twins, par­ents can in­vest more en­ergy into the sin­gle off­spring and the time to reach sex­ual ma­tu­rity is shorter com­pared to other new world pri­mates.

Goeldi's mar­mosets use com­mu­nal or co­op­er­a­tive care with their troop when rais­ing the young. This re­duces the cost of rais­ing off­spring for in­di­vid­ual moth­ers, and fe­males can re­turn to re­pro­duc­tive ac­tiv­ity faster be­cause they can in­vest less time in each in­fant. In the wild, co­op­er­a­tive care starts 10 to 15 days after birth. In cap­tiv­ity, co­op­er­a­tive care does not begin until around 27 days after young are born. Co­op­er­a­tive care in­cludes com­mu­nal feed­ing and trans­porta­tion of in­fants. After around 7 weeks ju­ve­niles can move in­de­pen­dently, but they are not fully in­de­pen­dent until around 12 weeks of age.

Most troops of Goeldi's mar­mosets have one dom­i­nant breed­ing fe­male that gives birth. If sub­or­di­nate fe­males have off­spring, the dom­i­nant fe­male typ­i­cally kills the in­fants. Fe­males reach sex­ual ma­tu­rity after 1 year, on av­er­age. Males reach sex­ual ma­tu­rity at 15 to 16 months. (Cornejo, 2014; Porter and Gar­ber, 2010; Porter, et al., 2009; Watsa, et al., 2012)

• Key Reproductive Features
• iteroparous
• seasonal breeding
• gonochoric/gonochoristic/dioecious (sexes separate)
• sexual
• viviparous

• Breeding interval

  Biannually

• Breeding season

  September to November for first annual birth; second annual birth is not reported

• Range number of offspring

  1 to 2

• Average number of offspring

  1

• Average number of offspring

  1

  AnAge

• Average gestation period

  155 days

• Average gestation period

  153 days

  AnAge

• Average weaning age

  12 weeks

• Average time to independence

  12 weeks

• Average age at sexual or reproductive maturity (female)

  12 months

• Average age at sexual or reproductive maturity (female)
  Sex: female

  365 days

  AnAge

• Average age at sexual or reproductive maturity (male)

  15 months

• Average age at sexual or reproductive maturity (male)
  Sex: male

  395 days

  AnAge

Both par­ents care for their off­spring until they reach in­de­pen­dence, though fe­males typ­i­cally care more for in­fants than males. After 10 to 15 days, other mem­bers of the group also start to care for the in­fant. Care-giv­ing in­cludes trans­porta­tion to food sources, pro­vi­sion of shel­ter, and pro­tec­tion from preda­tors. While in­fants are car­ried by adults, they also learn what to eat, how to move, and the so­cial struc­ture of the group. Co­op­er­a­tive care helps re­duce stress on both the fa­ther and mother. At around 7 weeks old, ju­ve­niles can move in­de­pen­dently and tran­si­tion into be­com­ing a group mem­ber. Ju­ve­niles are weaned and fully in­de­pen­dent after 12 weeks, on av­er­age. (Cornejo, 2014; Nowak, 1999; Watsa, et al., 2012)

• Parental Investment
• male parental care
• female parental care
• pre-hatching/birth
  • provisioning
    • female
  • protecting
    • female
• pre-weaning/fledging
  • provisioning
    • male
  • protecting
    • male
    • female
• pre-independence
  • provisioning
    • male
    • female
  • protecting
    • male
    • female

Lifes­pan/Longevity

Lifes­pans of Goeldi's mar­mosets have only been recorded in cap­tiv­ity. The av­er­age cap­tive lifes­pan is 7 years. The old­est recorded cap­tive in­di­vid­ual was 22.2 years old. (Weigl, 2005)

• Range lifespan
  Status: captivity

  22.2 (high) years

• Average lifespan
  Status: captivity

  7 years

• Average lifespan
  Status: captivity

  10.9 years

  Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research

• Average lifespan
  Status: captivity

  9.0 years

  Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research

• Average lifespan
  Sex: male
  Status: captivity

  15.8 years

  Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research

• Average lifespan
  Status: captivity

  17.9 years

  Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research

• Average lifespan
  Sex: female
  Status: captivity

  16.1 years

  Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research

Be­hav­ior

Goeldi's mar­mosets are so­cial an­i­mals that live in small groups of around 10 mem­bers. Within each group there is a so­cial hi­er­ar­chy that in­volves an alpha male and fe­male. So­cial sta­tus is de­ter­mined by phys­i­cal dom­i­nance over other mem­bers of the group. Goeldi's mar­mosets are so­cial an­i­mals that com­mu­ni­cate with each other fre­quently through­out the day. They have also been re­ported to travel and for­age with mous­tached tamarins (Sagui­nus mys­tax), white-lipped tamarins (Sagui­nus labi­a­tus), em­peror tamarins (Sagui­nus im­per­a­tor), and sad­dle­back tamarins (Sagui­nus fus­ci­col­lis), al­though com­bined group sizes have not been re­ported.

Due to their small group sizes and large ge­o­graphic range, groups of Goeldi's mar­mosets rarely come into con­tact with each other in the wild. If groups do come into con­tact, they typ­i­cally con­front each other with vocal calls and chas­ing be­hav­iors. Goeldi's mar­mosets use vocal calls to ex­press their be­hav­ior and at­ti­tude through­out the day.

The strong so­cial bond be­tween in­di­vid­ual Goeldi's mar­mosets can be seen due to the fact that they al­most al­ways stay within 10 to 20 m of each other. (Cornejo, 2014; Forsythe and Ford, 2011; Gar­ber and Porter, 2009; Han­son, et al., 2006; Nowak, 1999; Watsa, et al., 2012)

• Key Behaviors
• arboreal
• saltatorial
• diurnal
• motile
• sedentary
• social
• dominance hierarchies

Home Range

Goeldi's mar­mosets can cover a home range of 1.14 km² in a sin­gle day. Al­though groups rarely come into con­tact, they do de­fend ter­ri­to­ries using vo­cal­iza­tions. Exact ter­ri­tory sizes have not been re­ported. (Cornejo, 2014; Weigl, 2005)

Com­mu­ni­ca­tion and Per­cep­tion

Goeldi's mar­mosets have two pri­mary meth­ods of com­mu­ni­ca­tion: vocal and non-vo­cal. They use var­i­ous calls that can be dis­tin­guished by sound and length. Calls range from small chirps to long, loud shrills that can be heard over sev­eral hun­dred me­ters. Goeldi's mar­mosets use vo­cal­iza­tions to alert their group to pri­mates, food sources, and in­trud­ing pri­mates.

Goeldi's mar­mosets also com­mu­ni­cate non-vo­cally using fa­cial ex­pres­sions, yawn­ing, so­cial groom­ing, tail-wav­ing, urine-mark­ing, and scratch­ing. Adults will also fight each other, but this usu­ally oc­curs just be­tween mem­bers of the same sex. Males rarely fight with fe­males and vice versa.

Be­cause Goeldi's mar­mosets com­mu­ni­cate pri­mar­ily with vo­cal­iza­tions and body lan­guage, they rely heav­ily on acoustic and vi­sual stim­uli. This also helps them de­tect food and preda­tors in their en­vi­ron­ment. Goeldi's mar­mosets also per­ceive their en­vi­ron­ment using chem­i­cal and tac­tile stim­uli. (Cornejo, 2014; Gar­ber and Leigh, 2001; Watsa, et al., 2012)

• Communication Channels
• visual
• acoustic
• chemical

• Other Communication Modes
• scent marks

• Perception Channels
• visual
• tactile
• chemical

Food Habits

The diet of Goeldi's mar­mosets changes through­out the year, since food avail­abil­ity changes based on the wet and a dry sea­sons. Dur­ing the wet sea­son, over half of their diet con­sists of fruits and in­sects. They typ­i­cally eat in­sects found on branches or under leaf lit­ter on the for­est floor. Goeldi's mar­mosets also climb into the canopy to for­age for fruits. Dur­ing the dry sea­son, fungi com­prise 48 to 63% of their diet. The two main fun­gus gen­era that Goeldi’s mar­mosets con­sume are jelly fungi (Au­ric­u­laria) and bam­boo fungi (As­copoly­porous). Goeldi's mar­mosets are the only known pri­mate species where fungi make up the ma­jor­ity of their diet at some point in the year. Goeldi's mar­mosets also oc­ca­sion­ally feed on small ver­te­brates, such as lizards and frogs. Goeldi's mar­mosets also con­sume ex­u­dates, or sap-like sub­stances, which ooze from under the bark of trees. Goeldi's mar­mosets are known to gouge trees to get at ex­u­dates, but this is a less ideal com­po­nent of their diet com­pared to in­sects, fruits, fungi, and small ver­te­brates. (Cornejo, 2014; Nowak, 1999; Porter, et al., 2009)

• Primary Diet
• carnivore
  • eats terrestrial vertebrates
  • insectivore
• herbivore
  • frugivore
  • eats sap or other plant foods
• mycophage

• Animal Foods
• amphibians
• reptiles
• insects

• Plant Foods
• fruit
• sap or other plant fluids

• Other Foods
• fungus

Pre­da­tion

Goeldi's mar­mosets have few known preda­tors. They live in groups of around 20 in­di­vid­u­als that work to­gether to warn each other of preda­tors. Goeldi's mar­mosets have a wide range of vocal calls that give de­tails on how large the pre­da­tion threat is to other mem­bers. Known preda­tors of Goeldi's mar­mosets in­clude coatis (Nasua nasua), pumas (Puma con­color), bush hogs (Speothos va­nati­cus), and tayras (Eira bar­bara). Other preda­tors in­clude birds of prey, al­though avian preda­tors pose a smaller risk be­cause Goeldi's mar­mosets spend most of their time in the for­est un­der­story, where leaves and branches in the mid­story and canopy pro­tect them from aer­ial at­tacks. (Cornejo, 2014; Han­son, et al., 2006; Jurke and Pryce, 1994; Nowak, 1999; Watsa, et al., 2012)

• Known Predators

  • Coatis (Nasua nasua)
  • Pumas (Puma concolor)
  • Bush hogs (Speothos vanaticus)
  • Tayras (Eira barbara)

Ecosys­tem Roles

Goeldi's mar­mosets con­sume in­sects and may play a role in con­trol­ling the pop­u­la­tions of in­sect species in their diets. They also eat fruits from na­tive plants, and play a role in seed dis­per­sal for the plant species in their diets.

Goeldi's mar­mosets are known hosts of par­a­sites such as ne­ma­todes in the genus Gongy­lonema and bac­te­ria in the genus Pas­teurella. (Schradin and Azen­berger, 2001)

Eco­nomic Im­por­tance for Hu­mans: Pos­i­tive

Goeldi's mar­mosets have no known pos­i­tive im­pacts on human eco­nom­ics. (Forsythe and Ford, 2011; Nowak, 1999)

Eco­nomic Im­por­tance for Hu­mans: Neg­a­tive

Goeldi's mar­mosets have no known neg­a­tive im­pacts on human eco­nom­ics.

Con­ser­va­tion Sta­tus

Goeldi's mar­mosets are listed as "vul­ner­a­ble" on the IUCN Red list, with wild pop­u­la­tions listed as de­creas­ing in sev­eral areas. They are af­fected by habi­tat loss due to human de­vel­op­ment, with bam­boo forests and rain­forests through­out their ge­o­graphic range being cut down and con­verted to farm­land. How­ever, their low pop­u­la­tion den­sity and wide dis­tri­b­u­tion make track­ing pop­u­la­tions dif­fi­cult. More re­search on Goeldi's mar­mosets is re­quired to de­ter­mine how land de­vel­op­ment will im­pact their con­ser­va­tion sta­tus. Goeldi's mar­mosets are also listed under Ap­pen­dix I in CITES, which means they can­not be ex­ported or im­ported with­out a per­mit from the Man­age­ment Au­thor­ity of the State or other gov­ern­ing body. (Cornejo, 2014; Porter, et al., 2007)

• IUCN Red List

  Vulnerable
  More information

• IUCN Red List

  Vulnerable
  More information

• US Federal List

  No special status

• CITES

  Appendix I

• State of Michigan List

  No special status

Con­trib­u­tors

Devin Maf­fei (au­thor), Rad­ford Uni­ver­sity, Karen Pow­ers (ed­i­tor), Rad­ford Uni­ver­sity, April Tin­gle (ed­i­tor), Rad­ford Uni­ver­sity, Emily Clark (ed­i­tor), Rad­ford Uni­ver­sity, Cari Mc­gre­gor (ed­i­tor), Rad­ford Uni­ver­sity, Jacob Vaught (ed­i­tor), Rad­ford Uni­ver­sity, Galen Bur­rell (ed­i­tor), Spe­cial Pro­jects.

Ref­er­ences

Cornejo, F. 2014. "The IUCN Red List of Threat­ened Species" (On-line). Ac­cessed Feb­ru­ary 05, 2015 at http://​www.​iucnredlist.​org/​details/​3564/​0.

Forsythe, E., S. Ford. 2011. Cran­io­fa­cial adap­ta­tions to tree-goug­ing among mar­mosets. The Anatom­i­cal Record, 294: 2131–2139.

Gar­ber, P., S. Leigh. 2001. Pat­terns of po­si­tional be­hav­ior in mixed-species troops of cal­lim­ico goeldii, Sagui­nus labi­a­tus, and Sagui­nus fus­ci­col­lis in North­west­ern Brazil. Amer­i­can Jour­nal of Pri­ma­tol­ogy, 54/1: 17–31.

Gar­ber, P., L. Porter. 2009. Trunk-to-trunk leap­ing in wild Cal­lim­ico goeldii in north­ern Bo­livia. Neotrop­i­cal Pri­mates, 20/2: 9-14.

Han­son, A., M. Hall, L. Porter, B. Lintzenich. 2006. Com­po­si­tion and nu­tri­tional char­ac­ter­is­tics of fungi con­sumed by Cal­lim­ico goeldii in Pando, Bo­livia. In­ter­na­tional Jour­nal of Pri­ma­tol­ogy, 27/IV: 324-345.

Hof­mann, M., C. Schradin, T. Geiss­mann. 2007. Ra­di­ographic eval­u­a­tion of neona­tal skele­tal de­vel­op­ment in Cal­lim­ico goeldii re­veals closer sim­i­lar­ity to Cal­lithrix jac­chus than to Sagui­nus oedipu. Amer­i­can Jour­nal of Pri­ma­tol­ogy, 69/VI: 420-433.

Jurke, M., C. Pryce. 1994. Parental and in­fant be­hav­iour dur­ing early pe­ri­ods of in­fant care in Goeldi's mon­key, Cal­lim­ico goeldii. An­i­mal Be­hav­ior, 1994/VI: 1095-1112.

Ju­rkea, M., C. Prycea, M. Döbelib. 1995. An in­ves­ti­ga­tion into sex­ual mo­ti­va­tion and be­hav­ior in fe­male Goeldi's mon­key (Cal­lim­ico goeldii): Ef­fect of ovar­ian state, mate fa­mil­iar­ity and mate choice. Hor­mones and Be­hav­ior, 29: 531-553.

Nowak, R. 1999. Walker's Mam­mals of the World. Bal­ti­more and Lon­don: John Hop­kins Uni­ver­sity Press.

Nuss, K., M. Warneke. 2010. Life span, re­pro­duc­tive out­put, and re­pro­duc­tive op­por­tu­nity in cap­tive Goeldi's mon­keys (Cal­lim­ico goeldii). Zoo Bi­ol­ogy, 29/VI: 1-15.

Porter, L., S. Sterr, P. Gar­ber. 2007. Habi­tat use and rang­ing be­hav­ior of Cal­lim­ico goeldii. In­ter­na­tional Jour­nal of Pri­ma­tol­ogy, 28/IV: 1035–1058.

Porter, L. 2006. Dis­tri­b­u­tion and den­sity of Cal­lim­ico goeldii in the de­part­ment of Pando, Bo­livia. Amer­i­can Jour­nal of Pri­ma­tol­ogy, 68/VI: 235–243.

Porter, L., P. Gar­ber. 2010. My­cophagy and its in­flu­ence on habi­tat use and rang­ing pat­terns in Cal­lim­ico goeldii. Amer­i­can Jour­nal of Phys­i­cal An­thro­pol­ogy, 142/VI: 468–475.

Porter, L., E. Naci­mento, P. Gar­ber. 2009. Ex­u­dates as a fall­back food for Cal­lim­ico goeldii. Amer­i­can Jour­nal of Pri­ma­tol­ogy, 71/V: 120–129.

Ross, A., L. Porter, M. Power, V. So­daro. 2010. Ma­ter­nal care and in­fant de­vel­op­ment in Cal­lim­ico goeldii and Cal­lithrix jac­chus. Pri­mates, 51/V: 315-325.

Schradin, C., U. Azen­berger. 2001. In­fant car­ry­ing in fam­ily groups of Goeldi’s mon­keys (Cal­lim­ico goeldii). Amer­i­can Jour­nal of Pri­ma­tol­ogy, 53/VI: 57-67.

Watsa, M., G. Erkenswick, J. Rehg, R. Pit­man. 2012. Dis­tri­b­u­tion and new sight­ings of Goeldi’s mon­key (Cal­lim­ico goeldii) in Ama­zon­ian Perú. In­ter­na­tional Jour­nal of Pri­ma­tol­ogy, 33/VI: 1477–1502.

Weigl, R. 2005. Longevity of mam­mals in cap­tiv­ity; from the liv­ing col­lec­tions of the world. Stuttgart: Kleine Senck­en­berg-Reihe. Ac­cessed Feb­ru­ary 19, 2015 at http://​genomics.​senescence.​info/​species/​biblio.​php?​id=671.