Animal Diversity Web

Ge­o­graphic Range

Tar­sius syrichta is found in the rain­forests of the Philip­pines. This species is most com­monly found on Samar, Leyte, Bohol, and Min­danao.

• Biogeographic Regions
• oriental
  • native

• Other Geographic Terms
• island endemic

Habi­tat

Philip­pine tar­siers are found in areas of tall grasses, bushes, bam­boo shoots, and small trees in trop­i­cal rain­forests. They enjoy the canopy of the jun­gle, leap­ing from limb to limb. Tar­siers usu­ally do not move using four limbs; rather, they have de­vel­oped ex­cel­lent leap­ing skills.

• Habitat Regions
• tropical
• terrestrial

• Terrestrial Biomes
• forest
• rainforest
• scrub forest

Phys­i­cal De­scrip­tion

Tar­sius syrichta is a small brown­ish-gray­ish mam­mal. Their col­ors vary de­pend­ing upon the re­gion of the Philip­pines that they in­habit. Some have red­dish-brown hair.

Body size is ap­prox­i­mately 85 to 160 mm, with weights be­tween 80 and 165 g. They are about the size of a young child's hand. They have a 25 cm long tail that is tufted at the end.

Tar­siers have large ears, re­sem­bling a bat, and round faces. The area sur­round­ing their eyes is usu­ally darker than their body, with no white marks any­where on the face. The eyes are huge, and their vi­sion is acute. In pro­por­tion to their body, their eyes are the largest among mam­mals. The tar­sier's great hear­ing, cou­pled with their amaz­ing sense of sight, make them highly suc­cess­ful noc­tur­nal hunters. Their heads can ro­tate 180 de­grees.

The legs and arms of these tar­siers are long and slen­der. Some of their dig­its have flat­tened nails and some have claws which are used for groom­ing. They have pads on their fin­gers and toes to help them cling to branches. Their legs are strong, and they are ca­pa­ble of jump­ing dis­tances up to twenty feet.

Tar­siers dif­fer from other prosimi­ans in sev­eral char­ac­ters. These in­clude two groom­ing claws on each foot, lack of a tooth­comb formed by the lower ca­nines and in­cisors, and a diploid num­ber of eighty chro­mo­somes. Tar­siers are also less vocal than many other pri­mates.

• Other Physical Features
• endothermic
• bilateral symmetry

• Sexual Dimorphism
• sexes alike

• Range mass

  85 to 165 g

  3.00 to 5.81 oz

• Range length

  80 to 160 mm

  3.15 to 6.30 in

• Average basal metabolic rate

  0.43 W

  AnAge

Re­pro­duc­tion

These an­i­mals are usu­ally seen in male-fe­male pairs, in­di­cat­ing that like other tar­siers, they prob­a­bly mate monog­a­mously.

• Mating System
• monogamous

Breed­ing oc­curs through­out the year. Tar­sier fe­males bear a sin­gle young. The ges­ta­tion pe­riod lasts six months. Re­cent re­search shows that the breed­ing sea­son of tar­siers is de­fined by the avail­abil­ity of in­sects.

Young are able to cap­ture prey by about 45 days of age, and are thought to be weaned around that time.

• Key Reproductive Features
• iteroparous
• year-round breeding
• gonochoric/gonochoristic/dioecious (sexes separate)
• sexual
• fertilization
• viviparous

• Breeding interval

  Most tarsiers breed twice per year.

• Breeding season

  Breeding occurs throughout the year.

• Average number of offspring

  1

• Average number of offspring

  1

  AnAge

• Average gestation period

  6 months

• Average gestation period

  179 days

  AnAge

• Average weaning age

  45 days

The fe­males have mul­ti­ple pairs of nip­ples; how­ever, only the pec­toral are used. Off­spring are born well-furred and with eyes open. They are able to move about after only two days. In­fants are car­ried by means of their mother's mouth or on her belly. No nest is built. The young tar­siers can climb after two days and jump after four. Nor­mal lo­co­mo­tor pat­terns ensue at ap­prox­i­mately nine­teen days. Ju­ve­niles tend to be more uni­formly col­ored than adults.

Fe­males pro­vide the bulk of parental care. The role of the male in rear­ing the young has not been doc­u­mented.

• Parental Investment
• precocial
• pre-fertilization
  • provisioning
  • protecting
    • female
• pre-hatching/birth
  • provisioning
    • female
  • protecting
    • female
• pre-weaning/fledging
  • provisioning
    • female
  • protecting
    • female
• pre-independence
  • provisioning
    • female
  • protecting
    • female

Lifes­pan/Longevity

One T. syrichta is re­ported to have lived 13.5 years in cap­tiv­ity. It is likely that wild an­i­mals do not live as long as their cap­tive coun­ter­parts.

• Range lifespan
  Status: captivity

  13.5 (high) years

• Average lifespan
  Sex: male
  Status: captivity

  15.0 years

  Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research

• Average lifespan
  Status: captivity

  13.0 years

  Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research

• Average lifespan
  Status: captivity

  13.0 years

  Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research

• Average lifespan
  Status: captivity

  13.4 years

  Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research

• Average lifespan
  Sex: male
  Status: captivity

  13.5 years

  Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research

• Average lifespan
  Status: captivity

  12.0 years

  Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research

Be­hav­ior

This species is largely so­cial, but form only male fe­male pairs. They oc­ca­sion­ally as­so­ci­ate in small groups of gen­er­ally no more than four an­i­mals. They show lit­tle fear of other an­i­mals, es­pe­cially hu­mans, un­less quick move­ment is made. When in dan­ger, T. syrichta lets out a high pitched squeak.

Tar­siers are ar­bo­real and noc­tur­nal. They spend the day hid­ing in dense veg­e­ta­tion and sleep­ing in trees. At night they emerge to move about and hunt for prey.

• Key Behaviors
• arboreal
• nocturnal
• crepuscular
• motile
• sedentary
• solitary
• territorial
• social

Home Range

Tar­siers ap­pear to have home ranges of 1 to 2 hectares.

Com­mu­ni­ca­tion and Per­cep­tion

Tar­siers use var­ied means of com­mu­ni­ca­tion. Al­though less vocal than many pri­mate species, these an­i­mals use calls which are often as­so­ci­ated with ter­ri­to­r­ial main­te­nance and male-fe­male spac­ing. In ad­di­tion, they use scent marks from urine and glan­du­lar se­cre­tions to de­lin­eate their ter­ri­to­ries. Tac­tile com­mu­ni­ca­tion plays some role be­tween mates and be­tween moth­ers and their off­spring. The role of vi­sual com­mu­ni­ca­tion has not been es­tab­lished for this species, but be­cause they have very keen eye­sight, it is likely that body pos­tures and other vi­sual sig­nals are used.

• Communication Channels
• tactile
• acoustic
• chemical

• Other Communication Modes
• scent marks

• Perception Channels
• visual
• tactile
• acoustic
• chemical

Food Habits

Philip­pine tar­siers are pri­matily in­sec­tiv­o­rous. They eat in­sects, spi­ders, lizards, and small ver­te­brate an­i­mals such as birds. Upon seiz­ing its prey, a tar­sier car­ries it in its mouth and using both hands.

• Primary Diet
• carnivore
  • insectivore

• Animal Foods
• birds
• reptiles
• insects
• terrestrial non-insect arthropods

Pre­da­tion

Pre­da­tion upon these an­i­mals has not been widely re­ported. How­ever, be­cause of their noc­tur­nal and ar­bo­real habits, they are most likely to fall prey to owls, or to small car­ni­vores which can en­counter them in their canopy homes.

Ecosys­tem Roles

As preda­tors, these small pri­mates may help to struc­ture in­sect com­mu­ni­ties. To the ex­tent that they are preyed upon by other an­i­mals, they may im­pact preda­tor pop­u­la­tions.

Eco­nomic Im­por­tance for Hu­mans: Pos­i­tive

Tar­siers are some­times kept as pets, al­though their sur­vival in cap­tiv­ity is er­ratic due to their need for live in­sects upon which to feed. Sci­en­tists are in­ter­ested in these an­i­mals be­cause of their unique tax­o­nomic po­si­tion, and study of tar­siers may aid human economies.

• Positive Impacts
• pet trade
• research and education

Eco­nomic Im­por­tance for Hu­mans: Neg­a­tive

There is no known neg­a­tive im­pact of these an­i­mals on hu­mans, so long as the tar­siers are in their na­tive en­vi­ron­ment. How­ever, when kept as pets, there is a pos­si­bil­ity that they may spread worms and other par­a­sites to their human own­ers.

Con­ser­va­tion Sta­tus

The cur­rent con­di­tion of T. syrichta is threat­ened and en­dan­gered. Cap­tive breed­ing ef­forts have been started but to date all have been un­suc­cess­ful. Tar­siers have suf­fered greatly from hunters and trap­pers who shake the an­i­mals out of their trees or chop down the branches of the trees in which they live. They have also be­come pop­u­lar in the pet in­dus­try, es­pe­cially in Mex­ico. How­ever, tar­siers rarely live long in cap­tiv­ity. It has been re­ported that they are so trau­ma­tized by cap­tiv­ity that they beat their heads against their cages, even­tu­ally killing them­selves. Philip­pine tar­siers are also sig­nif­i­cantly af­fected by the in­creased rate of de­for­esta­tion in their na­tive habi­tat.

• IUCN Red List

  Near Threatened
  More information

• IUCN Red List

  Near Threatened
  More information

• US Federal List

  No special status

• CITES

  Appendix II

Other Com­ments

Be­cause this species is only found in a small area of the world it is cru­cial that we con­serve its en­vi­ron­ment. The de­struc­tion of nat­ural re­sources in the Philip­pines con­tin­ues to af­fect its in­hab­i­tants such as tar­siers. The in­dige­nous land an­i­mals of this part of the world are quickly being de­pleted. Tar­siers were named be­cause of the two greatly elon­gated bones on their feet. These extra bones give tar­siers added lever­age for jump­ing. Even though they are rat sized, tar­siers can jump four to six feet in a sin­gle jump.

Con­trib­u­tors

Nancy Shef­ferly (ed­i­tor), An­i­mal Di­ver­sity Web.

Carissa Ku­bicek (au­thor), Uni­ver­sity of Michi­gan-Ann Arbor.

Ref­er­ences

Al­ter­man, L. and Doyle, Ger­ald A. Crea­tures of the Dark: The Noc­tur­nal Prosimi­ans. Plenum Press, New York. 1995.

Doyle, G.A. and Mar­tin, R.D. The Study of Prosimian Be­hav­ior. Aca­d­e­mic Press, New York. 1979.

Eimerl, Sarel and De­Vore, Irven. The Pri­mates. Time In­cor­po­rated, New York. 1965.

Hill, Osman W.C. Pri­mates: Com­par­a­tive Anatomy and Tax­on­omy. Ed­in­burgh Press, Lon­don. 1955.

"Tar­sier." Col­lier's En­cy­clo­pe­dia. 1996.

"Tar­sier." En­cy­clo­pe­dia Amer­i­cana. 1996.

"Tar­sier." World Book En­cy­clo­pe­dia. 1996.

http://​www.​haribon.​org.​ph/​wildlife/​tarsier.​htm

http://​www.​snowcrest.​net/​goehring/​a2/​primates/​tarsier.​htm

http://​www.​haribon.​org.​ph/​forestry.​htm

Nowak, R. 1999. Walker's Mam­mals of the World, Sixth Edi­tion. Bal­ti­more and Lon­don: The Johns Hop­kins Uni­ver­sity Press.