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The Pygmy marmoset (Cebuella pygmaea)
The pygmy marmoset or dwarf monkey (Cebuella pygmaea) is a quadrupedal New World monkey native to the rainforest under-stories of western Brazil, south eastern Colombia, eastern Ecuador, eastern Peru, and northern Bolivia, with an altitudinal range of 200 to 940 metres. It is most common in river edge forests, but also can be found in secondary forest and moderately disturbed forest. The pygmy marmoset has been viewed as somewhat different from typical marmosets, most of which are classified in the genera Callithrix and Mico, and thus is accorded its own genus, Cebuella within the family 
Callitrichidae.
Pygmy marmosets live 11-12 years in the wild, but in zoos, they live into their early twenties.
It is one of the smallest primates, and the smallest true monkey, with its body length ranging from 14 to 16 centimetres (5.5 to 6.3 in) excluding the 15-to-20-centimetre (5.9 to 7.9 in) tail. Males weigh around 140 grams (4.9 oz), and females only 120 grams (4.2 oz). Nicknames for this monkey often refer to its diminutiveness, for example: mono de bolsillo (“pocket monkey”), leoncito (“little lion”).
Pygmy marmosets live in groups made up of one to two adult males and the same amount of adult females, with a single breeding female and her offspring, ranging from five to nine members. The breeding female gives birth to twins twice a year, and group members cooperate in carrying them. In contrast to other callitrichines with a co-operative system of infant care, there is no relationship between the number of adult males and the number of infants and offspring. However, there is a significant positive relationship between the number of juveniles and the number of adult and sub-adult group members. Young marmosets typically remain in the group until after two consecutive birth cycles.
The pygmy marmoset uses special types of communication to give alerts and warning to its family members. These include chemical, vocal, and physical types of communication. A trill is used to communicate over long distance. A sharp warning whistle and a clicking sound signal danger to their family members. A J-call is a series of fast notes repeated by the caller and is used at medium distances.
This monkey has a specialized diet of tree gum. It gnaws holes in the bark of appropriate trees and vines with its specialized dentition to elicit the production of gum. When the gum production resources, usually just one to two trees, of its home range (0.1 to 0.4 ha) become depleted, a group moves to a new home range. Brown-mantled tamarins are generally sympatric with pygmy marmosets and often raid pygmy marmosets’ gum holes. Insects and arachnids are also principal food resources of the species.
Pygmy marmosets have adapted insect-like tegulae to engage in a high degree of claw-clinging behaviors associated with exudates exploitation. Claw-clinging is primarily used during feeding, but also during exudates foraging.
There has been debate among primatologists concerning the proper genus in which to place the pygmy marmoset. An examination of the interstitial retinol binding protein nuclear gene (IRBP) in three marmoset species showed that Callithrix as constructed in the 1990s also needed to include C. pygmaea to be monophyletic, and that the times of separation of pygmaea and the argentata and jacchus species groups from one another are less than five million years ago, as might be expected for species of the same genus. However, subsequent separation of the argentata and jacchus species groups into different genera (the argentata group having been moved to Mico) justifies maintaining a separate genus for the pygmy marmoset, as Callithrix is no longer paraphyletic.
There are two subspecies of the pygmy marmoset: Cebuella pygmaea pygmaea – Western pygmy marmoset and Cebuella pygmaea niveiventris – Eastern pygmy marmoset.
(Source: Wikipedia – The Free Online Encyclopedia)
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