Frequently Asked Questions

Laranja, Eduardo, and their offspring helped to educate the public about conservation by living in a recreation of a site where tamarins are reintroduced in Brazil. Zoo visitors could see how tamarins might behave in the wild, and get a sense of what reintroduction sites are like.

The tamarins stayed within the range of the Zoo grounds because they had everything they needed right here: plenty of food and water, a familiar nest box, and each other.

They typically don't usually go far from their nest box. But if they did wander off, we could always find them. Around their necks were collars with miniature radio transmitters. We have special radio receivers that allow us to find each monkey by listening for the beep... beep... beep of its radio transmitter.

The free-ranging tamarins were out all day and all night. They returned to their nest box each evening. They slept in their nest box from about sundown until sunup.

No. Golden lion tamarins (GLTs) are from a tropical climate, although it can get cool at times in their native habitat. In the Zoo's free-range program, GLTs are released in the Zoo in late spring and remain in this free-ranging exhibit for several months.

Their diet includes: canned marmoset diet, bananas, apples, oranges, carrots, green beans, hard-boiled eggs, meal worms, and crickets. They also catch local insects.

They are fed at least twice a day. The first meal is in the morning and the other is in the early afternoon. Some food is left for them in feeders, and some is hidden in plants and crevices to encourage them to forage.

We dye their tails in different places. We dyed the two babies in different places since they are always being carried.

Eduardo, father	Laranja, mother
Mara, female born November 2006	Moe, male born November 2006
Baby, born May 2007, dyed on right thigh	Baby, born May 2007, dyed on left thigh

In the wild, tamarins sleep in hollow trees. Here at the Zoo we provide them with a specially modified picnic cooler. It is warm, dry, and predator proof.

GLTs are small monkeys, weighing around 17 to 21 ounces (500 to 700 grams).

GLTs are native to the Atlantic coastal forests of Brazil. Less than two percent of the original forest remains. What does remain has been fragmented into small, unconnected areas. Each area can support only a small number of tamarin groups.

GLTs are endangered. About 630 remain in the wild and another 550 live in the wild as a result of reintroduction. About 450 live in zoos. Without the intervention of the Golden Lion Tamarin Conservation Program, inbreeding would lead to the local extinction of many of these small populations of tamarins, and eventually the entire species.

Yes, there are three other species of lion tamarins: golden-headed lion tamarins, black lion tamarins, and black-faced lion tamarins. They all live in the tropical forest of eastern and southeastern Brazil, and all are endangered. Learn more.

We hope everyone who come to the National Zoo saw the free-ranging tamarins, but they must learn to fend for themselves and not interact with Zoo visitors. They are wild animals, and it is not safe for you or them to have direct contact with each other. They were given plenty of tamarin food; human food may be harmful to them.