Protect the Golden Lion Tamarins
By Yash Chothani
Photo Credit: Martyn @ negaro via Flickr
Appearance
Golden Lion Tamarin's are bueatiful creatures with huge golden manes and lovely long, silky hair. They can be 8-13 inches long with a tail 12-15 inches. Glt's are usually around 1.4 pounds with males being larger than the females. They have small round heads, flat faces and long claw-like nails to dig out food from small places.
Food chain
The Glt's are omnivore.they mostly eat spiders, snails, small reptiles, amphibians, eggs, small birds, fruits and flowers. They use their long, slender fingers to probe for food in deep places, this process is called micro manipulation. In a group of Glt's food sharing is very important. groups of 2-3 share food among themselves. The Glt's main predators are hawks, raptors, large snakes and cats.
Golden Lion Tamarin Monkey
Adaptation
Habitat
The Glt's prefer very humid tropical forests. They are mostly located in Brazil, South America. Their forests are in costal low lands were it rains 1500 mm a year! recently their habitat has been destroyed so they have learnt to live in degraded and secondary forest. To keep warm and hide from predators Glt's nest in tree holes 10-30 meters above the ground where animals on the ground can't reach them and predators in the air can't find them.
Glt's are amazing creatures that have many features to survive in their environment. Glt's have long fingers and nails to help them forage for food. Glt's use their long arms and tail to swing through the forest on vines and by jumping from tree to tree. They nest in high tree holes to be safe from predators and bad weather. Glt's live in groups of 2-16 and share food among troop members. When in groups they can give out alarm call when danger is around. In a family both male and females help raise the young. babies are usually born as twins.
Critical Info
The Glt's habitat is being destroyed fast and we need to help them. 90% of the Atlantic costal forest has been destroyed and more is being taken away from this amazing creatures by the ever-expanding business of logging. The Glt's are on the brink of extinction, theres only about 200 of them left in the world. conversationists are trying to save this species by putting them is zoo's to keep them safe and isolating some of them in a new safer forest. You can try to save save these amazing creatures by donating to organizations like http://www.savetheliontamarin.org.