Mini-Monkeys: Madeiran Marmosets and More

Santarem marmoset

Back in the 1970s,  a survey of the monkeys of South America identified just two species of "typical" marmoset living in the Amazon jungle: a naked-eared form, and a tassel-eared form. Both species were fairly variable in appearance, and each was considered to include three distinct subspecies. Today, better knowledge of things like their genetic make-up means that we have elevated all of those subspecies to full species status.

The "tassel-eared marmoset" had first been described in 1811 by Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire (although the date is officially given as 1812, because it took a year to get the description published). Because it was the first to be so described, the other two were considered subspecies of it, rather than the other way round. Once they were split off, we were left only with the species to which the originally collected specimen belonged. While still sometimes called the "tassel-eared marmoset" or some variation thereof, it is now more commonly called the Santarem marmoset (Mico humeralifer) to distinguish it from its kin.