Marmoset Misconceptions

Beginning with the early 16th century reports by Western scient~sts of tiny, primitive, clawed, squirrel-like monkeys inhabiting the forests of South America, misconceptions and bias regarding tamarin and ~nannoset phylogeny, classification, ecology, behavior, and snatomy have continued. For example, as recently as 1992, Martin tenaciously guarded rtu notion that callitrichines should be specially treated and proposed a scheme of classificat ion that by his own admission was unlikely to represent the evolutionary history of this goup . He advocated dividing New iclr ld monkeys into two major clades, the 'true' New World monkeys and the 'clawed' New World monkeys for systematic purposes. Tamarins, mannosets, and Goeldi's monkeys were assigned to the latter group, although Martin (L990) followed the tradition of Simpson (19451, Simons (1971) and others in aligning Cdllrnrico with noncallitrichine crboids ("...because it lackssome of the defining features of marmosets and tamarins, such as reduction in the number ofmolar teeth and twinning; "pg. 7 11). As we discuss below and as Martin apparently agrees despite his systematic arrangement not only do the genera Callimico. Saguinus, Leontopithecus, C u l l i ~ h r ~ x , and Cebuello represent a monophyletic group (subfamily Callitrichinae) (Rosenberger, 1 93 I , 19921, but recent immunological (Sarich & Cronin. 1980), biochemical (Seuanez et al., 19891, and molecular data (Schneider et al. 1993) tentatively place Goeldi's monkey as a sister group to the Callithri.~~Cebuella clade. We doubt this later l~nkage will stand against the scrutiny of further research, but nevertheless it represents strong evidence against a classification scheme that would place Callimiro anywhere but within the Ci~llitrichinae.