A pair of critically endangered pied tamarin monkeys were recently born at a zoo in southern Tennessee.
The Chattanooga Zoo said the mother, Daphne, had given birth to the healthy twins early on September 19. With compact, dark faces, distinctive ears, adorably tiny tails, and white and brown fur, the babies each weighed around a pound and will grow to be roughly a foot long.
“We’ve received a lot of positive feedback from people seeing the babies. Obviously, they’re adorable. They ride around on their parents’ backs and their siblings’ backs, which is really fun to watch,” Jake Cash, the zoo’s director of marketing and communications, told The Independent Wednesday. “You care more about something you can see and something that you can understand,” he noted.
Pied tamarins are part of the Callitrichidae primate family, which includes marmosets and many of the world’s smallest primates.
The zoo is one of just six US institutions that house the species. The facility first received pied tamarins in 2009, with the arrival of male Sammy and female Diddler. However, it was only in 2016 that Sammy was able to reproduce. Another pied tamarin, Zafra, gave birth to Dudley. Dudley and Daphne later birthed Crash and Eddy. These new babies are also Daphne and Dudley’s offspring.