The Racine Zoo announced Thursday the birth of a baby emperor tamarin. The baby doesn’t have a name yet, but the little one’s parents Isabella and Marquis are quite proud of their newborn.
The Racine Zoo acquired Isabella from the New England Zoo and Marquis came from the San Francisco Zoo. The two have been a breeding pair since 2012.
“This is our seventh tamarin birth at the Racine Zoo since then, and Marquis and Isabella continue to be amazing parents,” according to a press release by the Racine Zoo.
The birth is a pretty big deal because the Racine Zoo and the Como Zoo in St. Paul, Minnesota are the only zoos in the country to successfully breed this type of tamarin.
“The best part about this is that over the past three years, the population of emperor tamarins has grown by an average of seven percent,” the press release reads. “Isabella and Marquis have contributed greatly to this growth, with a single birth in 2014, a set of twins born in 2016, another set of twins in 2017 and one in December 2017.”
Marquis and the baby’s brother Pierre spend most of the time carrying the baby while Isabelle handles the nursing.
With this being her first younger sibling, sister Amelie is just starting to get to know the new baby and is now pitching in.
In the wild, emperor tamarins live in western Amazonia near large rivers, which tend to restrict their circulation. Their countries of origin include Peru, Brazil and Bolivia because of the lowland tropical rainforest. Because of their small size, the emperor tamarin has a number of predators, including wild cats, snakes and birds.
Due to this, their population numbers are rapidly declining because of deforestation.
