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. 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. 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.