Chattanooga Zoo welcomes 3 baby pied tamarins
The Chattanooga Zoo has announced the birth of three pied tamarins, a species of endangered primates found in the Amazonian rainforest.
The triplets were born early Thursday to “seasoned mother and first time father, Zafra and Sammy,” according to a news release from the zoo.
Nine-year-old Zafra mothered and raised three infants at the Cleveland Zoo before arriving in Chattanooga in April 2016. She and Sammy, 9, are doing well and proving to be caring parents, according to zoo officials.
Group care is an important feature among tamarin social structures, zoo officials said, because offspring don’t start to show mobility until they are 3-5 weeks old and are very dependent on their parents for up to seven months.
“It is so exciting to have baby triplets at our zoo and even more special to have a birth of an endangered species,” said Dardenelle Long, president and CEO of the Chattanooga Zoo. “This birth speaks volumes to the special care our staff provides to our animals and the relentless work they put into conserving animals all over the world.”
The Chattanooga Zoo first began housing pied tamarins in 2009, and this is the zoo’s first successful species survival plan breeding of this species. There are seven pied tamarins housed at the zoo, including the three newborns.