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Callitrichidae

Callitrichidae
Callitrichinae genus.jpg
Major extant callitrichid genera: Callithrix, Leontopithecus, Saguinus, Cebuella, Mico, Callimico.
Scientific classification
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Mammalia
Order: Primates
Suborder: Haplorrhini
Infraorder: Simiiformes
Parvorder: Platyrrhini
Family: Callitrichidae
Gray, 1821
Type genus
Callithrix
Genera

Cebuella
Callibella
Callithrix
Mico
Leontopithecus
Saguinus
Callimico

Synonyms
  • Callithricidae Thomas, 1903
  • Callitrichidae Napier and Napier, 1967
  • Hapalidae Wagner, 1840

Cebuella
Callibella
Callithrix
Mico
Leontopithecus
Saguinus
Callimico

The Callitrichidae (also called Arctopitheci or Hapalidae) are a family of New World monkeys, including marmosets and tamarins. At times, this group of animals has been regarded as a subfamily, called Callitrichinae, of the family Cebidae.

This taxon was traditionally thought to be a primitive lineage, from which all the larger-bodied platyrrhines evolved. However, some works argue that callitrichids are actually a dwarfed lineage.

Ancestral stem-callitrichids likely were "normal-sized" ceboids that were dwarfed through evolutionary time. This may exemplify a rare example of insular dwarfing in a mainland context, with the "islands" being formed by biogeographic barriers during arid climatic periods when forest distribution became patchy, and/or by the extensive river networks in the Amazon Basin.

All callitrichids are arboreal. They are the smallest of the simian primates. They eat insects, fruit, and the sap or gum from trees; occasionally they take small vertebrates. The marmosets rely quite heavily on tree exudates, with some species (e.g. Callithrix jacchus and Cebuella pygmaea) considered obligate exudativores.


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