Callimico goeldii ( Thomas, 1904 )

Voss, Robert S. & Fleck, David W., 2011, Mammalian Diversity And Matses Ethnomammalogy In Amazonian Peru Part 1: Primates, Bulletin of the American Museum of Natural History 2011 (351), pp. 1-81 : 28-29

Callimico goeldii ( Thomas, 1904)

VOUCHER MATERIAL: None.

UNVOUCHERED RECORDS: Nuevo San Juan (D.W. Fleck, unpublished), Río Blanco (Izawa, 1979), Santa Cecilia ( Hershkovitz, 1977), Tapiche ( Jorge and Velazco, 2006).

IDENTIFICATION: No specimen of Callimico goeldii is known from the Yavarí- Ucayali interfluve, but a skin and skull from Contayo (on the left bank of the upper Río Tapiche; AMNH 98281) 8 agrees in all qualitative external and craniodental charac-

ters with published descriptions of the species ( Thomas, 1904, 1913; Hershkovitz, 1977). The collector, Harvey Bassler (a petroleum geologist; Myers, 2000), recorded no external measurements, and the skull has been bisect- ed longitudinally for anatomical study; as a result, transverse cranial measurements cannot be taken. However, other craniodental dimensions of this specimen, including condyloincisive length (CIL, 41.0 mm) and length of the maxillary toothrow (C1–M3, 15.4 mm) are within the published range of variation for Callimico goeldii (see Hershkovitz, 1977: appendix table 2 ).

REMARKS: No other western Amazonian callitrichine is completely black, so unvouchered reports by competent observers have high credibility. Our sighting at Nuevo San Juan (of a small troop moving through secondary vegetation close to the ground on the right bank of the Río Gálvez) was unambiguous, and several other sight records from the region seem trustworthy.

Izawa (1979: 5) reported that ‘‘ Callimico occurs as a relatively high population from the head to the upper basin of the Río Blanco, a [right-bank] tributary of the Río Tapiche.’’ Izawa also observed Callimico along the upper Río Tapiche, but did not specify on which bank(s) his observations were made. (Additional information from Izawa’s primatological survey of the Tapiche-Blanco is apparently available in a Japanese-language publication that we have not seen [ Izawa, 1978]). Recently, however, Jorge and Velazco (2006) reported Callimico at an inventory site on the right bank of the upper Tapiche.

Hershkovitz (1977: 928) attributed the Santa Cecilia sighting to the late Pekka Soini, whose correspondence (dated 28 June 1970) is still preserved in the FMNH Division of Mammals’ archives. In fact, Soini did not explicitly mention Santa Cecilia, but stated that Callimico goeldii ‘‘seems to be definitely known … to some natives along the Maniti river.’’ Santa Cecilia is a small community on the right (east) bank of the lower Manití ( Robbins et al., 1991), a site where Soini might plausibly have interviewed local informants. Subsequent primate census work along the Río Manití, however, has not produced additional records of this elusive species ( Tapia et al., 1990).

ETHNOBIOLOGY: A few Matses talk about a monkey called sipi çhëşhë ‘‘black tamarin,’’ which is said to be different from tamarins, extremely rare, all black (including the area around its mouth), and to forage on the ground and very close to the ground. However, most Matses have never seen this species.