Golden headed lion tamarin
In Episode 2 of Big Little Journeys a lion tamarin family travel to the edge of their world and into a new future for their species.
Location: Atlantic Forest, Brazil
In Brazil’s Atlantic Forest, when food becomes scarce a lion tamarin family travels to the edge of their world to find a land of plenty.
Journey distance: 5 miles
Destination: A cabruca - a place where people sustainably grow fruit in the shade of giant native trees, including cocoa and the world's largest fruit - Jackfruit. Jackfruit is 5 times bigger than a lion tamarin and there’s enough fruit on a single tree to feed the world population of lion tamarins for a day.
Weight & Size: The adults are 500 - 700g and as tall as a milk bottle. The babies are small enough to fit in the palm of a hand.
Top Speed: 25 miles per hour. They can sprint in short bursts as fast as Usain Bolt. They have claws like running spikes that enable them to run along the branches, and extended forelimbs that are like springs to boost their momentum.
Food: Primarily fruit such as figs. 10% of their diet is prey including insects and frogs.
Threats:
- Only 6,000 golden headed lion tamarins remain in the wild. Their decline is a result of severe habitat loss and climate change that decreases the predictability of fruit.
- They must also keep watch for harpy eagles 30 times heavier than they are, and wildcats including ocelots that are agile enough to hunt in the trees.
Superpowers:
- Teamwork! They work as family and share child care which frees up mum to find food for making milk.
- They can communicate with Weids marmosets, allowing the two monkey families to work together as they travel. The lion tamarins take the high branches looking for aerial threats whilst the marmosets keep an eye out down below for predators on the prowl.
