New monkey species found in Amazon area threatened by deforestation

Stephen Nash

By Chris Baraniuk

He peered through his binoculars in the direction of the treetops in apprehension. Perched up there had been three runt marmosets – with white tails. Rodrigo Costa Araújo became gobsmacked. Most varied Amazonian marmosets’ tails are black.

That became the second that Araújo, on the Nationwide Institute of Amazonian Compare, Brazil, realised he may well accumulate a peculiar species on his hands. “I thought, ‘Oh my God, they are varied, they are in spite of the entirety, in spite of the entirety varied’,” he remembers.

Araújo and his colleagues from institutes including the Federal College of Amazonas first noticed the marmosets in …