Pygmy marmoset

Pygmy marmosets bite little holes in trees.

Sticky, sweet sap comes out. They lick it up! They also catch bugs.

Pygmy marmosets have a special way to eat. They use their long, sharp bottom teeth to bite small round holes in tree bark. Sticky gum and sap slowly ooze out, and the marmosets lick it up.

A family can make more than 100 holes in one tree and come back to them again and again. They start near the bottom of the tree and work their way up. When they are not eating gum, they catch insects, especially grasshoppers, and eat some fruit, flowers and nectar.

Pygmy marmosets are exudativore-insectivores. Narrow, elongated lower incisors gouge nearly circular holes 10 to 20 millimeters wide and 4 to 18 deep; gum, sap, resin or latex then seeps out. Exudates take 60 to 80 percent of feeding time and insects 12 to 16 percent, with fruit, buds, flowers, nectar and occasionally small lizards added (Primate Info Net). An enlarged cecum gives extra time to digest plant gums.

The oldest holes are lowest on a tree and newer ones higher, and a family may drill more than 100 holes in one tree (New England Primate Conservancy). When a tree's yield falls, the group shifts to a new area and the tree recovers.

Pygmy marmosets live in small families.

They trill to talk to each other. At night they sleep together in a tangle of vines.

Pygmy marmosets live in family groups of about two to nine, usually with one mother and father that have babies and their children from earlier litters. Each morning the family goes straight to its favorite gum tree to eat.

They talk with soft trills when they are close, and a long "kwee-kwee-kwee" call when they are far apart. If a snake or bird comes near, the whole family may rush at it, calling loudly, until it leaves.

Groups average five (range two to nine): usually one breeding female, one breeding male and the young of one to four litters, sometimes with extra non-breeding adults. Other females in the group are reproductively suppressed. Groups sleep in dense vine tangles, feed on gum at dawn and late afternoon, and rarely interact with neighbors, whose home ranges do not overlap (Primate Info Net).

Trills keep contact within about five meters, J-calls at five to 10 meters, and long calls beyond 10 meters, often from lone animals seeking mates. Scent marks carry information about reproductive state. Predators include raptors, small cats and climbing snakes, which groups may mob.

Some people catch pygmy marmosets to sell as pets.

That hurts them. Tiny monkeys belong in the forest with their families.

The pygmy marmoset is listed as Vulnerable. Losing forest is a problem, but the biggest danger is the pet trade: because they are so tiny and cute, people catch them to sell as "finger monkeys". Many die on the way.

The world's strictest trade protection, CITES Appendix I, now covers pygmy marmosets. They are also protected in national parks such as Amacayacu in Colombia.

The IUCN lists Cebuella pygmaea as Vulnerable, with a decreasing population (de la Torre and colleagues, assessed 2023, published 2025). Although it lives in secondary forest, populations have declined in fragmented habitat near people in Ecuador, where marmosets are also easier for trappers to find.

The illegal pet trade is the main threat; many animals die in transit and some local populations may not recover. The species is listed in CITES Appendix I, the category for species most threatened by trade (New England Primate Conservancy).