Zoo Ostrava The Annual Report 2009

Keeping a new primate species at Ostrava Zoo
Karin Tančiboková
Since the mid-year 2008, building alterations in the entrance part of the parrot house commenced to
provide for a new exhibit named “Little Amazonia”. The rebuilding process cost the zoo 1.9 million CZK, with
1.5 million extended by OKD Foundation and the remainder co-funded from the allocation of the Statutory
City of Ostrava. Formally opened on 18 April, this exhibit became home to new dwellers, including primates
that were never held in Ostrava before.
The cotton-top tamarin (Saguinus oedipus), a critically endangered member of the callitrichid family,
primates that feature nails converted into little claws on each of the digits except the big toes. Their rather
long body, limbs and tail as well as their claws make callitrichids very well adapted for climbing thick tree
trunks. The cotton-top tamarin measures 210-250 cm and its weight ranges from 400 to 500 g. The back is
brown with light marble pattern, while the underparts including limbs are white. They feature heavy-looking
white hairs on their nape, so are sometimes dubbed Liszt monkeys as they are said to resemble the famous
composer. Pregnancy takes 140 days; the female will mostly bear twins or even triplets, but the latter is rare.
Tamarins live in small family clans, with both parents caring for the infants. The young ones are carried by the
male and older siblings on their back and delivered to the female only for feeding. This tamarin can live for
up to 15 years. The cotton-top tamarin is a diurnal creature that will spend most of its time in trees, searching
for food almost all day long, feeding on fruits, young leaves and buds, but also insects and nectar. When
threatened, the tamarin will stand up on its hind limbs, erecting the prolonged hairs on the nape. When
vocalising, cotton-top tamarin's voice sounds like bird singing.
At the moment, there are more cotton-top tamarins in zoos and private holders than in the wild, which
probably is due to the use of this primate in pharmacy throughout Europe, being the reason for their imports.
The species' range is limited only to northern Columbia, a region where biodiversity is relatively high, but
conservation rather poor, with converting forests into the farming land and development of water power
plants posing the main threats not only to tamarins.
For the new exhibit, a family group was imported to the zoo from Dresden, which involved a breeding pair
and four juveniles. In the latter half of May, the female Isabel gave birth to twins. The family was really a good
example of a breeding group. In September 2009, the young but already sexually mature males tried to chase
the dominant male Leopold away from the group, with Isabel eventually joining these efforts. Three young
males had to be separated from the group and placed behind the scenes. Leopold was separated as well due
to its injuries, with subsequent treatment lasting one month; then this animal could be reunited with the
group.
Attractiveness is added to the Little Amazonia through several components, like the vivarium containing
tiny frog species - the three-striped poison frog (Ameerega trivittata) and the golden poison frog (Phyllobates
terribilis), the naturalistic display showing peculiar invertebrates - death's head cockroaches (Blaberus
craniifer) and the white-banded tarantula (Acanthoscurria geniculata), and the artificial waterfall with
a water tank for freshwater creatures, with the ocellate river stingray (Potamotrygon motoro) - the first
member of cartilaginous fishes at Ostrava Zoo, black band myleus or disk tetra (Myleus schomburgkii) and
banded leporinus (Leporinus fasciatus) being certainly the worth-mentioning species.
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