New titi monkey species found in the Amazon

August 16th, 2010 - 9:08 pm ICT by Aishwarya Bhatt  

titi Columbia, Aug 16 (THAINDIAN NEWS) Professors Thomas Defler and Marta Bueno of Universidad Nacional de Colombia in collaboration with Javier Garcia, who is a biology student has found a new species of the titi monkey species (Callicebus caquetensis) in Colombia’s Amazon forest.

Garcia hails from the area known as Caquetá where the team found the new monkey species. He used a GPS to aid him travel on foot to an area near the upper Caquetá River. He came across 13 groups of the new species after hearing their calls.

Terrorists and other armed groups have plagued the area in the past and many scientists refused to explore there as a result of the fear of attacks.

According to Dr Defler, his group was very pleased with what they had found after hearing many stories of the existence of the new species for years. He also added that their new discovery confirmed how rich the Amazon was. He said that, “This discovery is extremely exciting because we had heard about this animal, but for a long time we could not confirm if it was different from other titis. We now know that this is a unique species, and it shows the rich diversity of life that is still to be discovered in the Amazon.”

The new species are quite small, the size of pet cats and had a long tail marked in gray with grayish-brown hair. They are however said to be on the brink of extinction.

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