New Monkey Found in Brazil Is Further Proof for Rainforest Preservation
7/2/98
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Title: New Monkey Found in Brazil Is Further Proof for Rainforest Preservation
Source: Environment News Service
Status: Copyrighted, contact source to reprint
Date: 7/2/98
WASHINGTON, DC, July 2, 1998 (ENS) - A tiny new monkey measuring just six inches
long
with a nine-inch tail is the latest finding among Brazil's recent string of new
primate
discoveries.
The Washington, DC based organization Conservation International today released
the
scientific description of Callithrix humilis, also known as the dwarf marmoset,
as
published in Goeldiana Zoologia, a Brazilian scientific journal.
"This discovery is so remarkable because this distinctive primate was found in a
forest
only about 50 minutes away by small plane from the densely populated city of
Manaus. If
we are still finding new primates species in such accessible habitats, just
imagine what
species remain undiscovered in the more remote stretches of tropical forest,"
said Dr.
Russell Mittermeier, Conservation International president and chairman of the
Primate
Specialist Group with the World Conservation Union's Species Survival
Commission.
Found only in Brazil, the new marmoset increases the number of primates for
Brazil to 77,
with seven of these species discovered just since 1990 and 39 native only to
Brazil.
Brazil claims the highest primate diversity of any country in the world.
The dwarf marmoset lives on the west bank of the lower Aripuana River and along
the east
bank of the Madeira River in the central Brazilian Amazon. The marmoset's known
distribution is the smallest of any primate in the Amazon.
"This provides yet another reason to take immediate action to protect the
Earth's
tropical forests, which are being destroyed at an accelerated pace wiping out
untold
numbers of valuable plant and animal species," Mittermeier said.
The entire basin between the Rio Madeira and the Rio Tapajos has one of the
highest
levels of primate diversity on Earth. In spite of this, no protected area has
been
established in this part of Amazonia.
Since the new marmoset seems to live exclusively along the major rivers and
creeks in the
area, and total numbers appear to be no more than a few thousand, the scientists
who
discovered the animal consider it vulnerable, and possibly endangered.